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i 



THE SCHOLARS' LIBRARY 


HAWTHORNE 

'I _ \ 

TWICE-TOLD TALES 
BIOGRAPHICAL STORIES 


EDITED BY 

>SHERWIN CODY 


1 



PUBLISHED FOR THE BOARD OF 
EDUCATION BY R. R. DONNELLEY 
AND SONS COMPANY, CHICAGO 

L 


38577 


Libr**/ y of Otin * 

Two Copies Reo'-eo 

AUG 25 1900 

Ct^ynjhf •ntry 

» • . (?. . . 

stcoNt) corv. 

0*Mver«id f# 

O«0tR DIVISION, 

SEP 1 190U 


. ''O 9 ? 


Copyright 1900 
By SHERWIN CODY 


73979 


CONTENTS 


FAGS 

HAWTHORNE— HIS LIFE ... 5 

TWICE-TOLD TALES : 

The Snow-Image . . . . 21 

The Great Stone Face ... 44 

Howe’s Masquerade . . . . 72 

Drowne’s Wooden Image . . .92 

BIOGRAPHICAL STORIES : 

Benjamin West . . . , m 

Sir Isaac Newton . . . . .122 

Oliver Cromwell . . . . 130 



HAWTHORNE 


Did you ever see the Great Stone Face in the 
White Mountains of New Hampshire? It is only 
the rocky top of a mountain outlined against the 
sky, but as we look we are startled to see the 
heap of rocks taking shape as a human face, 
with long nose, deep-set eyes, and high forehead. 
There is something about it that makes us cease 
to smile, and gazing reverently, we feel, if we 
do not say, “No man carved that face; thatis 
God’s work. “ 

Hawthorne wrote one of his simplest and most 
beautiful stories about this face. He tells how 
Ernest, the little boy in the valley, gazed each 
day at the face, wishing he might have the noble 
qualities of mind he seemed to see there, until at 
last the people cried out that he fulfilled the 
prophecy that one should come to save them 
whose face resembled the face of “The Old Man 
of the Mountains.” 

So Hawthorne himself lived alone, and gazed 
earnestly on the great face of Nature as he 
walked in the woods or by lake or seashore. 
Little by little he saw the greatness in every- 
thing. His imagination peopled the clouds, and 
gave life to trees and rocks. He saw the value 
of the most hidden deeds of the humblest people. 

7 


8 


HAWTHORNE 


He was almost an old man before he became 
famous, but now we say, “He is our country’s 
greatest novelist.’’ 

We usually think of Hawthorne as a small, awk- 
ward, painfully shy young man, fond of mooning 
about alone, and making up for his lack of 
sociability by the brilliancy of his genius. The 
fact is, he was tall, with a strikingly fine figure, 
black hair, even features, and a fascinating per- 
sonality. A gypsy woman who once met him in 
the woods stopped short and exclaimed, “Do 
I see a man or an angel?’’ He was a daring 
skater on Lake Sebago, in the woods of Maine, 
beside which he lived for several years of his 
boyhood, with his mother and sisters; and once 
he followed a black bear far into the woods with 
a gun, though he failed to get a shot at the crea- 
ture. His letters to his sisters are bubbling over 
with fun and boyishness, and his love-letters to 
his wife are entrancingly ardent and human, 
though, unlike those of many great men, never 
for a moment silly. Hawthorne did not like 
strangers, and had a peculiar trait, character- 
istic of the whole family, of affecting secluded 
habits. But for those who succeeded in getting 
behind the curtain that he was forever holding 
up to shut out the public gaze, he was a splendid 
specimen of a man, both as a warm friend, a genial 
companion, and a stanch, honest defender of 
truth. He had an eerie fancy, and a strange, 
wild imagination, which give an almost super- 
natural tinge to all his writings; but he, of all 
men, was not morbid, and his genius has not the 
least kinship to insanity. We must learn to think 
of the handsome, healthy, kind-hearted, honest 


HIS LIFE 


9 

Hawthorne, the real Hawthorne, before we can 
comprehend the meaning of his^ imaginative 
flights, which have quite a different significance 
when we are assured of the clear-headed purpose 
behind them. 

Like Longfellow, Bryant, Lowell, Whittier, 
and Holmes, Hawthorne came of the very best 
New England Puritan stock. ‘ ‘ His forefathers, ’ ’ 
says his son Julian, “whatever their less obvious 
qualities may have been, were at all events enter- 
prising, active, practical men, stern and cour- 
ageous, accustomed to deal with and control 
lawless and rugged characters. They were sea- 
captains, farmers, soldiers, and magistrates; and 
in whatever capacity, they were used to see their 
own will prevail, and to be answerable to no 
man.” The first American Hawthorne landed 
at Boston in 1630, and was for fifty years member 
of the legislature, or “General Court,” as it was 
called, and for not a few of those years he was 
Speaker. Eloquent he must have been, and in 
more ways than one he was a truly great man. 
His son John became the “witch-judge,” and 
was cursed by a so-called witch, but apparently 
with.no ill effects. Hawthorne’s father was a sea- 
captain, and died of yellow fever in 1808 while 
with his ship in a foreign port. 

Miss Elizabeth Peabody, Mrs. Hawthorne’s sis- 
ter, says the Hawthorne family degenerated in 
two hundred years, and was very reserved and 
unsociable; but the father of our novelist and 
some other members of the family did not cease 
to be true gentlemen. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, July 
4, 1804. His mother had been a gifted and 


lO 


HAWTHORNE 


beautiful young woman; but after the death of 
her husband, she shut herself up and scarcely 
appeared in public, though she lived many 
years. There is no doubt in the world that this 
seclusion on her part had its effect on the 
children. 

After the death of his father, Nathaniel went 
to live with his Grandfather Manning (his 
mother’s father), and was much indulged by 
uncles and aunts and cousins, who thought him 
a very pretty child. “One of the peculiarities 
of my boyhood,’’ says he, “was a grievous dis- 
inclination to go to school, and (Providence 
favoring me in this natural repugnance) I never 
did go half as much as other boys, partly owing 
to delicate health (which I made the most of for 
the purpose), and partly because, much of the 
time, there were no schools within reach. 

“When I was eight or nine years old,’’ he goes 
on, “my mother, with her three children, took up 
her residence on the banks of Sebago Lake, in 
Maine, where the family owned a large tract of 
land, and here I ran quite wild, and would, 
I doubt not, have willingly run wild till this time, 
fishing all day long, or shooting with an old fowl- 
ing-piece; but reading a good deal, too, on rainy 
days, especially in Shakespeare and ‘The Pil- 
grim’s Progress,’ and any poetry or light books 
within my reach. Those were delightful days; 
for that part of the country was wild then, with 
only scattered clearings, and nine-tenths of it 
primeval woods. 

“But by and by my good mother began to 
think it was necessary for her boy to do some- 
thing else; so I was sent back to Salem, where 


HIS LIFE 


II 


a private instructor fitted me for college. I was 
educated (as the phrase is) at Bowdoin College. 

I was an idle student, negligent of college rules 
and the Procrustean details of academic life, 
rather choosing to nurse my own fancies than to 
dig into Greek roots and be numbered among 
the learned Thebans.”* 

Hawthorne’s sister Elizabeth, soon after her 
brother’s death, wrote some interesting letters 
about him to a niece, in which she gives many 
trivial but fascinating details of his early life. 
He was very fond of animals, especially kittens; 
yet like all boys he would sometimes tease them. 
Once when he had tossed a kitten over the fence, 
and was told she would never like him again, he 
said, ‘‘Oh, she’ll think it was William!” — William 
was one of his playmates. 

A very curious trait of his was a seeming dis- 
like for money. Once when some was offered 
him in the country, where there was no oppor- 
tunity to spend it, he refused it. On another 
occasion an old gentleman who was a friend of ^ 
the family offered him a five-dollar bill,^nd he 
refused it; which his sister says was very uncivil 
to the old gentleman. 

His uncle on his mother’s side took charge of 
his education, and sent him to the best schools. 
When in Maine the Hawthorne family lived part 
of the time with this uncle. While here Nathaniel 
injured his foot in playing ball, so that for a long 
time he could only lie on the floor and read, or 
hobble about on two crutches. The foot became 

♦This and the following quotation, including the letters, are from 
Julian Hawthorne’s “Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife,” Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. This is one of the best biographies we 
know. 


12 


HAWTHORNE 


much smaller than the one that was uninjured, 
and many doctors were consulted ; yet it was Dr. 
Time that cured him at last. But the long con- 
finement due to this lameness, no doubt, laid 
the foundation of his habit of reading, which was 
the school in which he learned his wonderful 
literary skill. 

His son Julian says his father used often to tell 
him stories of the winters in Maine. He loved 
to hunt and fish, but more for the fun of the 
thing than for the game; for he often forebore 
to pull the trigger because he hated to kill the 
bird, and when he had caught a fish he would 
throw it back into the lake from pity. He and 
his sisters enjoyed this half-wild country life so 
much that they hoped never to go back to civil- 
ization ; but after a time they found themselves 
once more in Salem. 

As a boy, Hawthorne was full of fun and good 
humor, as may easily be gathered from a few 
extracts from letters written about the time he 
went to Bowdoin College. Here is one entire 
that is full of an airy drollery quite enchanting: 

“Salem, Tuesday, Sept. 28, i8ig. 

“Dear Sister: — We are all well and hope you are 
the same. I do not know what to do with myself here. 
I shall never be contented here, I am sure. I now go to 
a five-dollar school — I, that have been to a ten-dollar one. 
*0 Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou fallen!’ I 
wish I were but in Raymond,* and I should be happy. 
But ‘ ’twas light that ne’er shall shine again on life’s dull 
stream.’ I have read ‘Waverley,’ ‘The Mysteries of 
Udolpho,’ ‘ The Adventures of F erdinand Count F athom,’ 
‘ Roderick Random,’ and the first volume of ‘ The Ara- 
bian Nights.’ 

♦Their home in Maine on Lake Sebago. 


HIS LIFE 


13 


Oh, earthly pomp is but a dream, 

And like a meteor’s short-lived gleam; 

And all the sons of glory soon 

Will rest beneath the mouldering stone. 

And genius is a star whose light 
Is soon to sink in endless night, 

And heavenly beauty’s angel form 
Will bend like flower in winter’s storm. 

“Though these are my rhymes, yet they are not 
exactly my thoughts. I am full of scraps of poetry; 
can’t keep it out of my brain. 

I saw where in the lowly grave 
Departed Genius lay; 

And mournful yew-trees o’er it wave. 

To hide it from the day. 

“ I could vomit up a dozen pages more if I were a 
mind to turn over. 

Oh, do not bid me part from thee. 

For I will leave thee never. 

Although thou throw’st thy scorn on me. 

Yet I will love forever. 

There is no heart within my breast. 

For it is flown away. 

And till I knew it was thy guest, 

I sought it night and day. 

“ Tell Ebe* she’s not the only one of the family whose 
works have appeared in the papers. The knowledge I 
have of your honor and good sense, Louisa, gives me 
full confidence that you will not show this letter to any- 
body. You may to mother, though. My respects to Mr. 
and Mrs. Howe. I remain 

“ Your humble servant and affectionate brother, 

“ N. H.” 

A few months later he writes to his mother: 

“ I dreamed the other night that I was walking by the 
Sebago; and when I awoke was so angry at finding it all 
a delusion, that I gave Uncle Robert (who sleeps with 
me) a most horrible kick. 


♦His sister Elizabeth. 


HAWTHORNE 


H 

“ I don’t read so much now as I did, because I am 
more taken up in studying. I am quite reconciled to 
going to college, since I am to spend the vacations with 
you. Yet four years of the best part of my life is a great 
deal to throw away. I have not yet concluded what pro- 
fession I shall have. The being a minister is of course 
out of the question. I should not think that even you 
could desire me to choose so dull a way of life. Oh, no, 
mother, I was not born to vegetate forever in one place, 
and to live and die as calm and tranquil as — a puddle of 
water. As to lawyers, there are so many of them already 
that one half of them (upon a moderate calculation) are 
in a state of actual starvation. A physician, then, seems 
to be ‘ Hobson’s choice’; but yet I should not like to live 
by the diseases and infirmities of my fellow-creatures. 
And it would weigh very heavily on my conscience, in 
the course of my practice, if I should chance to send 
any unlucky patient ‘ ad inferum,’ which being interpreted 
is, ‘ to the realms below.’ Oh, that I was rich enough to 
live without a profession! What do you think of my 
becoming an author, and relying for support upon my 
pen? Indeed, I think the illegibility of my hand-writing 
is very author-like. How proud you would feel to see 
my works praised by the reviewers, as equal to the 
proudest productions of the scribbling sons of John Bull.” 

Another very amusing letter, for which we 
have not room here, is one to his aunt, telling 
of the missionary society to which he does not 
belong and the prayer-meetings he does not 
attend. 

Hawthorne’s son and biographer describes him 
at this time as “the handsomest man of his day 
in that part of the world. ’’ He was five feet ten 
and a half inches in height, broad-shouldered, 
but of a light, athletic build, not weighing more 
than one hundred and fifty pounds. His limbs 
were beautifully formed, and his neck and throat 
were molded like a piece of antique sculpture. 
His hair was long and wavy and nearly black ; his 


HIS LIFE 


15 

eyebrows were heavy and finely arched. His 
nose was straight, but he had a Roman chin. 
He never wore a beard, and was without a mus- 
tache until he was fifty-five. He had large, dark, 
brilliant eyes, which Bayard Taylor said were 
the only eyes he had ever known that could 
flash fire. Charles Reade, too, says he never 
saw such an eye in any other human head. His 
complexion was rather dark, his cheeks ruddy, 
and his skin very sensitive. He carried himself 
erect, with a springing gait, and until he was 
forty could clear five feet at a standing jump. 
His voice was low, deep, and full, but had an 
astonishing strength when he chose to let it out, 
and then it came, says his son, with “the searching 
and electrifying quality of the blast of a trumpet, ’ ’ 
which might have quelled a crew of mutinous 
privateersmen as the voice of Bold Daniel, his 
grandfather. 

Hawthorne was three years older than Long- 
fellow, who graduated with him in 1826, and 
instead of taking an honorable position as pro- 
fessor at Bowdoin, or some other college, like 
his poet classmate, he shut himself up at the 
ancestral home in Salem, and for several years 
lived a most secluded life. He seldom left the 
house except for an hour in the evening, when he 
went for a walk along country roads, where no 
one would see him. After his return he would 
eat a bowl of thick chocolate crumbed full of 
bread for winter diet, in summer substituting 
fruit to some extent. He read a great many 
books during those lonely days he passed in the 
“haunted chamber,” “the ante-chamber of his 
fame.” He had already made up his mind to 


i6 


HAWTHORNE 


become an author, and here he studied and wrote 
with that ambition in view. “Sometimes,” he 
says, “it seemed as if I were already in the 
grave, with only life enough to be chilled and 
benumbed. But oftener I was happy — at least 
as happy as I then knew how to be, or was aware 
of the possibility of being.” 

For eight long years he lived “as a shadow, 
walking in a shadowy world.” He was healthy 
and happy, but the loneliness of this period left 
its impress on all his literary work. He wrote 
some short stories, which were published anony- 
mously in various periodicals and were afterward 
collected into two volumes of “Twice-Told 
Tales.”* He also wrote a short novel, called 
“Fanshawe, ” which he published at his own ex- 
pense, carefully concealing his name in connec- 
tion with it, and which he suppressed and de- 
stroyed almost immediately on its publication. 

At last he fell in love, and was forced to give 
up his solitude. 

Mrs. Hawthorne, who was Sophia Peabody 
before her marriage, was a very sweet, intelli- 
gent, unselfish, beautiful woman. During all her 
girlhood she was a continual invalid, and had 
a constant headache from her twelfth to her 
thirtieth year. She thought she would never 
marry; but love cured her headaches, and when 
she was married she was in almost perfect 
health. 

Hawthorne’s love-letters have an ideal beauty 
about them that is as fine as anything in his 
published writings, as the reader may judge for 
himself from the following extract: 

*“ Howe’s Masquerade” was contained in these volumes. 


HIS LIFE 


^7 

“Six or seven hours of cheerful solitude! But I will 
not be alone. I invite your spirit to be with me, — at any 
hour and as many hours as you please, — but especially at 
the twilight hour, before I light my lamp. I bid you at 
that particular time, because I can see visions more 
vividly in the dusky glow of firelight than either by 
daylight or lamplight. Come, and let me renew my spell 
against headache and other direful effects of the east 

wind I never till now had a friend who 

could give me repose; all have disturbed me, and, 
whether for pleasure or pain, it was still disturbance. 
But peace overflows from your soul into mine. Then I 
feel that there is a Now, and that Now must be always 
calm and happy, and that sorrow and evil are but phan- 
toms that seem to flit across it.” 

Fie was married July 9, 1842. He was thirty- 
eight and his wife was thirty; yet the best of the 
lives of both was still before them. They went 
to live at “the Old Manse" in Concord, made 
famous by Emerson (whose home was here at 
one time), and still more famous by Hawthorne’s 
volume of stories, “Mosses from an Old Manse," 
one of the best of which is “Drowne’s Wooden 
Image. " 

Hawthorne was now gradually becoming known 
among literary men as a skillful writer of short 
stories, and there came to his house in Concord 
such genial friends as Emerson, Thoreau, Mar- 
garet Fuller, Ellery Channing;, and Alcott. But 
still the first novelist of America was unknown to 
fame, and was wretchedly poor. He had already 
been weigher and gauger in the custom-house at 
Boston on a salary of a few hundred a year, but 
he was able to hold the office for only two years, 
at the end of which time the Democratic party, 
under which he held the appointment, went out 
of power. After four years in Concord, in which 


i8 


HAWTHORNE 


he struggled to pay his debts by the meager 
returns from his literary work, he was appointed 
surveyor of customs at Salem, with a salary of 
twelve hundred dollars a year. He had children 
now, and the duties of his office occupied him 
so closely that he wrote but little, though of 
that little “The Snow Image” will always be 
remembered. Hawthorne’s mother died in 1849; 
and even before that he had lost his office by 
some sharp manoeuvering of politicians. Money 
must be had to support his growing family. His 
wife had saved enough to keep them for a few 
months. He therefore decided to write a novel, 
and “The Scarlet Letter” was begun. It was 
finished in about six months, and immediately 
on its publication it brought Hawthorne into 
fame as one of the foremost of American writers. 
He was forty-six years old. How long he had 
waited for fame, even for the little money his 
literary work so richly deserved! “The mills of 
the Gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding 
fine. ” Hawthorne was almost an old man before 
Fame touched his arm and bade him follow her; 
but so long as the United States remains a nation 
the name of Hawthorne will be adored by her 
people. 

“The Great Stone Face” was written soon 
after the completion of “The Scarlet Letter.” 
Hawthorne was dissatisfied with it as a work of 
art; but his wife caught the secret of its great- 
ness, for she said, “Ernest is a divine creation — 
so grand, so comprehensive, so simple.” 

The Hawthornes removed to the Berkshire 
Hills, where “The House of the Seven Gables” 
was written. It was published in 1851, and 


HIS LIFE 


19 

proved almost as successful as “The Scarlet 
Letter.” After a short vacation he began the 
“Wonder Book, ” that most delightful of all story- 
books for boys and girls. In November, 1851, 
he removed to Boston, and began at once “The 
Blithedale Romance.” This story, describing 
the life at Brook Farm (where all the authors 
went, Hawthorne among the number, and milked 
cows and hoed potatoes and weeded carrots), was 
published in 1852, and brought to Hawthorne 
more friends than ever. He now bought a house 
in Concord ; but he was soon to leave it for a stay 
of some years in Europe. In the summer of 1852 
he wrote a campaign life of his college friend, 
Franklin Pierce, who had been nominated for the 
Presidency of the United States. When Pierce 
was elected he appointed Hawthorne consul at 
Liverpool, an office supposed to be worth $20,000 
a year. So at last he was wealthy as well as 
famous — at least he could live comfortably, and 
travel about on the continent of Europe, and 
enjoy the many friends his literary work had 
made for him. While in Rome he wrote “The 
Marble Faun,” and to this period we owe the 
delightful “Note Books.” 

He returned to his home in Concord in 1861, 
just as the Civil War was breaking out. His 
work was now nearly accomplished. He still 
wrote articles from time to time, and attempted 
more stories, but his health was failing. In 1864 
he started for a journey south with his friend and 
publisher, Mr. Ticknor; but Mr. Ticknor sud- 
denly died, and, almost prostrated by the shock, 
Hawthorne returned home, and soon after started 
on a journey into New Hampshire with his old 


20 


HAWTHORNE 


friend, Franklin Pierce. They reached Plymouth, 
and put up at the Pemigewassett House. During 
the night of the i8th of May, Mr. Pierce went 
into his friend’s room to see how he was resting, 
and found that he was dead. 

Hawthorne’s was a very quiet life. He moved 
from Salem to Concord and back to Salem, and 
took a pleasant and comfortable trip to Europe. 
He was married and had children, Una, Rose, 
and Julian; he wrote stories, and earned a poor 
living at first — indeed, through the greater part 
of his life — and only came into pleasant ways for 
a few years at the end. But what a world his 
imagination created ! He taught us that dreams 
are real. They are the yearning of the soul 
toward God. Hawthorne is forever pointing us 
upward, like the finger on a church steeple; or, 
like “The Old Man of the Mountains,’’ he 
reminds us of the prophecy which it is our mis- 
sion to fulfill. His language is as clear and 
beautiful as the mountain air we feel so often in 
his stories. If we are merely vain and frivolous 
and gay, thinking only of the whirling pleasure 
of the moment, we shall not like Hawthorne; but 
when we begin to learn the pleasure of being 
alone with Nature and with our own souls, aspir- 
ing toward greatness of heart and purpose, how- 
ever humble our lot, we will read Hawthorne 
with a new and keen pleasure, and we will see 
the power in our lives of a strong and noble 
imagination. 


TWICE-TOLD TALES 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 

A CHILDISH MIRACLE 

One afternoon of a cold winter’s day, when the 
sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long 
storm, two children asked leave of their mother 
to run out and play in the new-fallen snow. The 
elder child was a little girl, whom, because she 
was of a tender and modest disposition, and was 
thought to be very beautiful, her parents, and 
other people who were familiar with her, used to 
call Violet. But her brother was known by the 
style and title of Peony, on account of the ruddi- 
ness of his broad and round little phiz, which 
made everybody think of sunshine and great 
scarlet flowers. The father of these two chil- 
dren, a certain Mr. Lindsey, it is important to 
say, was an excellent but exceedingly matter-of- 
fact sort of man, a dealer in hardware, and was 
sturdily accustomed to take what is called the 
common-sense view of all matters that came 
under his consideration. With a heart about as 
tender as other people’s, he had a head as hard 
and impenetrable, and therefore, perhaps, as 
empty, as one of the iron pots which it was a part 


21 


22 


HAWTHORNE 


of his business to sell. The mother’s character, 
on the other hand, had a strain of poetry in it, 
a trait of unworldly beauty — a delicate and dewy 
flower, as it were, that had survived out of her 
imaginative youth, and still kept itself alive amid 
the dusty realities of matrimony and motherhood. 

So, Violet and Peony, as I began with saying, 
besought their mother to let them run out and 
play in the new snow; for though it had looked 
so dreary and dismal drifting downward out of 
the gray sky, it had a very cheerful aspect now 
that the sun was shining on it. The children 
dwelt in a city, and had no wider play-place than 
a little garden before the house, divided by 
a white fence from the street, and with a pear- 
tree and two or three plum-trees overshadowing 
it, and some rose-bushes just in front of the par- 
lor windows. The trees and shrubs, however, 
were now leafless, and their twigs were enveloped 
in the light snow, which thus made a kind of 
wintry foliage, with here and there a pendent 
icicle for the fruit. 

“Yes, Violet — yes, my little Peony,” said 
their kind mother, “you may go out and play in 
the new snow.” 

Accordingly, the good lady bundled up her 
darlings in woolen jackets and wadded sacks, 
and put comforters round their necks, and 
a pair of striped gaiters on each little pair of legs, 
and worsted mittens on their hands, and gave 
them a kiss apiece, by way of a spell to keep 
away Jack Frost. Forth sallied the two chil- 
dren, with a hop-skip-and-jump that carried 
them at once into the very heart of a huge snow- 
drift, whence Violet emerged like a snow-bunt- 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 


23 

ing, while little Peony floundered out with his 
round face in full bloom. Then what a merry 
time had they! To look at them, frolicking in 
the wintry garden, you would have thought that 
the dark and pitiless storm had been sent for no 
other purpose but to provide a new plaything for 
Violet and Peony; and that they themselves had 
been created, as the snow-birds were, to take 
delight only in the tempest, and in the white 
mantle which it spread over the earth. 

At last, when they had frosted one another all 
over with handfuls of snow, Violet, after laugh- 
ing heartily at little Peony’s figure, was struck 
with a new idea. 

“You look exactly like a snow-image. Peony,” 
said she, “if your cheeks were not so red. And 
that puts me in mind ! Let us make an image out 
of snow — an image of a little girl — and it shall be 
our sister, and shall run about and play with us 
all winter long. Won’t it be nice?” 

“Oh, yes!” cried Peony, as plainly as he could 
speak, for he was but a little boy. “That will 
be nice! And mamma shall see it!” 

“Yes,” answered Violet; “mamma shall see 
the new little girl. But she must not make her 
come into the warm parlor; for, you know, our 
little snow-sister will not love the warmth.” 

And forthwith the children began this great 
business of making a snow-image that should run 
about; while their mother, who was sitting at the 
window and overheard some of their talk, could 
not help smiling at the gravity with which they 
set about it. They really seemed to imagine 
that there would be no difficulty whatever in cre- 
ating a live little girl out of the snow. And, to 


HAWTHORNE 


24 

say the truth, if miracles are ever to be wrought, 
it will be by putting our hands to the work in 
precisely such a simple and undoubting frame of 
mind as that in which Violet and Peony now un- 
dertook to perform one, without so much as 
knowing that it was a miracle. So thought the 
mother; and thought, likewise, that the new 
snow, just fallen from heaven, would be excellent 
material to make new beings of, if it were not so 
very cold. She gazed at the children a moment 
longer, delighting to watch their little figures — 
the girl, tall for her age, graceful and agile, and 
so delicately colored that she looked like a cheer- 
ful thought more than a physical reality; while 
Peony expanded in breadth rather than height, 
and rolled along on his short and sturdy legs as 
substantial as an elephant, though not quite so 
big. Then the mother resumed her work. What 
it was I forget; but she was either trimming a 
silken bonnet for Violet or darning a pair of stock- 
ings for little Peony’s short legs. Again, however, 
and again, and yet other agains, she could not 
help turning her head to the window to see how 
the children got on with their snow-image. 

Indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight, 
those bright little souls at their task! More- 
over, it was really wonderful to observe how 
knowingly and skillfully they managed the mat- 
ter. Violet assumed the chief direction, and 
told Peony what to do, while with her own deli- 
cate fingers she shaped out all the nicer parts of 
the snow-figure. It seemed, in fact, not so much 
to be made by the children as to grow up under 
their hands, while they were playing and prattling 
about it. Their mother was quite surprised at 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 


25 

this ; and the longer she looked, the more and 
more suprised she grew. 

What remarkable children mine are ! ’ ’ thought 
she, smiling with a mother’s pride; and smiling 
at herself, too, for being so proud of them. 
“What other children could have made anything 
so like a little girl’s figure out of snow at the first 
trial? Well; but now I must finish Peony’s new 
frock, for his grandfather is coming to-morrow, 
and I want the little fellow to look handsome.’’ 

So she took up the frock, and was soon as 
busily at work again with her needle as the two 
children with their snow-image. But still, as the 
needle traveled hither and thither through the 
seams of the dress, the mother made her toil light 
and happy by listening to the airy voices of Violet 
and Peony. They kept talking to one another 
all the time, their tongues being quite as active 
as their feet and hands. Except at intervals, 
she could not distinctly hear what was said, but 
had merely a sweet impression that they were in 
a most loving mood, and were enjoying them- 
selves highly, and that the business of making 
the snow-image went prosperously on. Now and 
then, however, when Violet and Peony happened 
to raise their voices, the words were as audible as 
if they had been spoken in the very parlor where 
the mother sat. Oh, how delightfully those 
words echoed in her heart, even though they meant 
nothing so very wise or wonderful, after all! 

But you must know a mother listens with her 
heart much more than with her ears; and thus 
she is often delighted with the trills of celestial 
music, when other people can hear nothing of 
the kind. 


26 


HAWTHORNE 


“Peony, Peony!” cried Violet to her brother, 
who had gone to another part of the garden, 
“bring me some of that fresh snow, Peony, from 
the very farthest corner, where we have not been 
trampling. I want it to shape our little snow- 
sister’s bosom with. You know that part must 
be quite pure, just as it came out of the sky!” 

“Here it is, Violet!” answered Peony, in his 
bluff tone — but a very sweet tone, too — as he 
came floundering through the half-trodden drifts. 
“Here is the snow for her little bosom. O Violet, 
how beau-ti-ful she begins to look!” 

“Yes,” said Violet, thoughtfully and quietly; 
“our snow-sister does look very lovely. I did 
not quite know. Peony, that we could make such 
a sweet little girl as this.” 

The mother, as she listened, thought how fit 
and delightful an incident it would be if fairies, 
or still better, if angel-children were to come 
from paradise, and play invisibly with her own 
darlings, and help them to make their snow- 
image, giving it the features of celestial baby- 
hood! Violet and Peony would not be aware of 
their immortal playmates — only they would see 
that the image grew very beautiful while they 
worked at it, and would think that they them- 
selves had done it all. 

“My little girl and boy deserve such playmates, 
if mortal children ever did!” said the mother to 
herself; and then she smiled again at her own 
motherly pride. 

Nevertheless, the idea seized upon her imagin- 
ation; and, ever and anon, she took a glimpse 
out of the window, half dreaming that she might 
see the golden-haired children of paradise sport- 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 27 

ing with her own golden-haired Violet and bright- 
cheeked Peony. 

Now, for a few moments, there was a busy 
and earnest, but indistinct hum of the two chil- 
dren’s voices, as Violet and Peony wrought 
together with one happy consent. Violet still 
seemed to be the guiding spirit, while Peony acted 
rather as a laborer, and brought her the snow 
from far and near. And yet the little urchin evi- 
dently had a proper understanding of the matter, 
too ! 

“Peony, Peony!’’ cried Violet; for her brother 
was again at the other side of the garden. 
“Bring me those light wreaths of snow that have 
rested on the lower branches of the pear-tree. 
You can clamber on the snow-drift. Peony, and 
reach them easily. I must have them to make 
some ringlets for our snow-sister’s head!’’ 

“Here they are, Violet!’’ answered the little 
boy. “Take care you do not break them. Well 
done! Well done! How pretty!’’ 

“Does she not look sweetly?’’ said Violet, with 
a very satisfied tone; “and now we must have 
some little shining bits of ice, to make the bright- 
ness of her eyes. She is not finished yet. 
Mamma will see how very beautiful she is; but 
papa will say, “Tush! nonsense! — come in out 
of the cold!’ ’’ 

“Let us call mamma to look out,’’ said Peony; 
and then he shouted lustily: “Mamma! mamma!! 
mamma!!! Look out, and see what a nice ’ittle 
girl we are making!’’ 

The mother put down her work for an instant, 
and looked out of the window. But it so hap- 
pened that the sun — for this was one of the short- 


28 


HAWTHORNE 


est days of the whole year — had sunken so nearly 
to the edge of the world that his setting shine 
came obliquely into the lady’s eyes. So she was 
dazzled, you must understand, and could not 
very distinctly observe what was in the garden. 
Still, however, through all that bright, blinding 
dazzle of the sun and the new snow, she beheld 
a small white figure in the garden, that seemed 
to have a wonderful deal of human likeness about 
it. And she saw Violet and Peony — indeed, she 
looked more at them than at the image — she saw 
the two children still at work; Peony bringing 
fresh snow, and Violet applying it to the figure 
as scientifically as a sculptor adds clay to his 
model. Indistinctly as she discerned the snow- 
child, the mother thought to herself that never 
before was there a snow-figure so cunningly made, 
nor ever such a dear little girl and boy to make it. 

“They do everything better than other chil- 
dren, ’ ’ said she, very complacently. “No wonder 
they make better snow-images!’’ 

She sat down again to her work, and made as 
much haste with it as possible, because twilight 
would soon come, and Peony’s frock was not yet 
finished, and grandfather was expected, by rail- 
road, pretty early in the morning. Faster and 
faster, therefore, went her flying fingers. The 
children, likewise, kept busily at work in the gar- 
den, and still the mother listened, whenever she 
could catch a word. She was amused to observe 
how their little imaginations had got mixed up 
with what they were doing, and carried away by 
it. They seemed positively to think that the 
snow-child would run about and play with them. 

“What a nice playmate she will be for us, all 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 


29 

winter long!” said Violet. “I hope papa will not 
be afraid of her giving us a cold! Sha’n’t you 
love her dearly, Peony?” 

“Oh, yes!” cried Peony. “And I will hug her, 
and she shall sit down close by me, and drink 
some of my warm milk!” 

“Oh, no. Peony!” answered Violet, with grave 
wisdom. “That will not do at all. Warm milk 
will not be wholesome for our little snow-sister. 
Little snow-people, like her, eat nothing but 
icicles. No, no. Peony; we must not give her 
anything warm to drink!” 

There was a minute or two of silence; for 
Peony, whose short legs were never weary, had 
gone on a pilgrimage again to the other side of 
the garden. All of a sudden, Violet cried out, 
loudly and joyfully: 

“Look here. Peony! Come quickly! A light 
has been shining on her cheek out of that rose- 
colored cloud! And the color does not go away! 
Is not that beautiful!” 

“Yes, it is beau-ti-ful, ” answered Peony, pro- 
nouncing the three syllables with deliberate 
accuracy. “O Violet, only look at her hair! It 
is all like gold!” 

“Oh, certainly,” said Violet, with tranquillity, 
as if it were very much a matter of course. 
“That color, you know, comes from the golden 
clouds that we see up there in the sky. She is 
almost finished now. But her lips must be made 
very red — redder than her cheeks. Perhaps, 
Peony, it will make them red if we both kiss 
them !” 

Accordingly, the mother heard two smart little 
smacks, as if both her children were kissing the 


HAWTHORNE 


30 

snow-image on its frozen mouth. But, as this 
did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, 
Violet next proposed that the snow-child should 
be invited to kiss Peony’s scarlet cheek. 

“Come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me!’’ cried 
Peony. 

“There! she has kissed you,*’ added Violet, 
“and now her lips are very red. And she 
blushed a little, too!’’ 

“Oh, what a cold kiss!’’ cried Peony. 

Just then, there came a breeze of the pure 
west-wind, sweeping through the garden and 
rattling the parlor windows. It sounded so 
wintry cold that the mother was about to tap on 
the window-pane with her thimbled finger, to 
summon the two children in, when they both cried 
out to her with one voice. The tone was not a 
tone of surprise, although they were evidently 
a good deal excited; it appeared rather as if they 
were very much rejoiced at some event that had 
now happened, but which they had been looking 
for, and had reckoned upon all along. 

“Mamma! mamma! We have finished our 
little snow-sister, and she is running about the 
garden with us!’’ 

“What imaginative little beings my children 
are!’’ thought the mother, putting the last few 
stitches into Peony’s frock. “And it is strange, 
too, that they make me almost as much a child as 
they themselves are! I can hardly help believ- 
ing now that the snow-image has really come to 
life!’’ 

“Dear mamma!’’ cried Violet, “pray look out 
and see what a sweet playmate we have!’’ 

The mother, being thus entreated, could no 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 31 

longer delay to look forth from the window. The 
sun was now gone out of the sky, leaving, how- 
ever, a rich inheritance of his brightness among 
those purple and golden clouds which make the 
sunsets of winter so magnificent. But there was 
not the slightest gleam or dazzle, either on the 
window or on the snow; so that the good lady 
could look all over the garden, and see everything 
and everybody in it. And what do you think 
she saw there? Violet and Peony, of course, her 
own two darling children. Ah, but whom or 
what did she see besides? Why, if you will be- 
lieve me, there was a small figure of a girl, 
dressed all in white, with rose-tinged cheeks and 
ringlets of golden hue, playing about the garden 
with the two children ! A stranger though she 
was, the child seemed to be on as familiar terms 
with Violet and Peony, and they with her, as if 
all the three had been playmates during the 
whole of their little lives. The mother thought 
to herself that it must certainly be the daughter 
of one of the neighbors, and that, seeing Violet 
and Peony in the garden, the child had run across 
the street to play with them. So this kind lady 
went to the door, intending to invite the little 
runaway into her comfortable parlor; for, now 
that the sunshine was withdrawn, the atmosphere 
out of doors was already growing very cold. 

But, after opening the house-door, she stood 
an instant on the threshold, hesitating whether 
she ought to ask the child to come in, or whether 
she should even speak to her. Indeed, she 
almost doubted whether it were a real child after 
all, or only a light wreath of the new-fallen snow, 
blown hither and thither about the garden by 


HAWTHORNE 


32 

the intensely cold west-wind. There was cer- 
tainly something very singular in the aspect of 
the little stranger. Among all the children of 
the neighborhood, the lady could remember no 
such face, with its pure white and delicate rose- 
color, and the golden ringlets tossing about the 
forehead and cheeks. And as for her dress, 
which was entirely of white, and fluttering in the 
breeze, it was such as no reasonable woman would 
put upon a little girl when sending her out to play 
in the depth of winter. It made this kind and 
careful mother shiver only to look at those small 
feet, with nothing in the world on them, except 
a very thin pair of white slippers. Nevertheless, 
airily as she was clad, the child seemed to feel 
not the slightest inconvenience from the cold, 
but danced so lightly over the snow that the tips 
of her toes left hardly a print in its surface; 
while Violet could but just keep pace with her, 
and Peony’s short legs compelled him to lag 
behind. 

Once, in the course of their play, the strange 
child placed herself between Violet and Peony, 
and taking a hand of each, skipped merrily for- 
ward, and they along with her. Almost imme- 
diately, however, Peony pulled away his little 
fist, and began to rub it as if the fingers were 
tingling with cold; while Violet also released 
herself, though with less abruptness, gravely re- 
marking that it was better not to take hold of 
hands. The white-robed damsel said not a word, 
but danced about just as merrily as before. If 
Violet and Peony did not choose to play with her, 
she could make just as good a playmate of the 
brisk and cold west-wind, which kept blowing 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 


33 

her all about the garden, and took such liberties 
with her that they seemed to have been friends 
for a long time. All this while, the mother stood 
on the threshold, wondering how a little girl 
could look so much like a flying snowdrift, or 
how a snowdrift could look so very like a little 
girl. 

She called Violet, and whispered to her. 

“Violet, my darling, what is this child’s 
name?’’ asked she. “Does she live near us?’’ 

“Why, dearest mamma,’’ answered Violet, 
laughing to think that her mother did not com- 
prehend so very plain an affair, “this is our little 
snow-sister whom we have just been making!’’ 

“Yes, dear mamma,’’ cried Peony, running to 
his mother, and looking up simply into her face; 
“this is our snow-image! Is it not a nice ’ittle 
child?’’ 

At this instant a flock of snow-birds came flit- 
ting through the air. As was very natural, they 
avoided Violet and Peony. But — and this looked 
strange — they flew at once to the white-robed 
child, fluttered eagerly about her head, alighted 
on her shoulders, and seemed to claim her as an 
old acquaintance. She, on her part, was evi- 
dently as glad to see these little birds, old Win- 
ter’s grandchildren, as they were to see her, and 
welcomed them by holding out both her hands. 
Hereupon, they each and all tried to alight on 
her two palms and ten small fingers and thumbs, 
crowding one another off, with an immense flut- 
tering of their tiny wings. One dear little bird 
nestled tenderly in her bosom ; another put its 
bill to her lips. They were as joyous all the 
while, and seemed as much in their element as 


34 HAWTHORNE 

you may have seen them when sporting with 
a snow-storm, 

Violet and Peony stood laughing at this pretty 
sight; for they enjoyed the merry time which 
their new playmate was having with these small- 
winged visitants, almost as much as if they them- 
selves took part in it. 

“Violet,” said her mother, greatly perplexed, 
“tell me the truth, without any jest. Who is 
this little girl?” 

“My darling mamma,” answered Violet, look- 
ing seriously into her mother’s face, and appar- 
ently surprised that she should need any further 
explanation, “I have told you truly who she is. 
It is our little snow-image, which Peony and 
I have been making. Peony will tell you so as 
well as I.” 

“Yes, mamma,” asseverated Peony, with much 
gravity in his crimson little phiz; “this is ’ittle 
snow-child. Is not she a nice one? But, mamma, 
her hand is, oh, so very cold!” 

While mamma still hesitated what to think 
and what to do, the street gate was thrown open, 
and the father of Violet and Peony appeared, 
wrapped in a pilot-cloth sack, with a fur cap 
drawn down over his ears, and the thickest of 
gloves upon his hands. Mr. Lindsey was a mid- 
dle-aged man, with a weary and yet a happy 
look in his wind-flushed and frost-pinched face, 
as if he had been busy all the day long, and was 
glad to get back to his quiet home. His eyes 
brightened at the sight of his wife and children, 
although he could not help uttering a word or 
two of surprise at finding the whole family in the 
open air on so bleak a day, and after sunset. 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 


35 

too. He soon perceived the little white stranger 
sporting to and fro in the garden, like a dancing 
snow-wreath, and the flock of snow-birds flutter- 
ing about her head. 

“Pray, what little girl may that be?” inquired 
this very sensible man. “Surely her mother 
must be crazy to let her go out in such bitter 
weather as it has been to-day, with only that 
flimsy white gown and those thin slippers!” 

“My dear husband, ” said his wife, “I know no 
more about the little thing than you do. Some 
neighbor’s child, I suppose. Our Violet and 
Peony,” she added, laughing at herself for re- 
peating so absurd a story, “insist that she is 
nothing but a snow-image, which they have been 
busy about in the garden almost all the after- 
noon. ” 

As she said this, the mother glanced her eyes 
toward the spot where the children’s snow-image 
had been made What was her surprise on per- 
ceiving that there was not the slightest trace of 
so much labor! — no image at all! — no piled-up 
heap of snow ! — nothing whatever, save the prints 
of little footsteps around a vacant space ! 

“This is very strange!” said she. 

“What is strange, dear mother?” asked Violet. 
“Dear father, do not you see how it is? This is 
our snow-image, which Peony and I have made 
because we wanted another playmate. Did not 
we, Peony?” 

“Yes, papa,” said crimson Peony. “This be 
our ’ittle snow-sister. Is she not beau-ti-ful? 
But she gave me such a cold kiss!” 

“Pooh, nonsense, children!” cried their good, 
honest father, who, as we have already intimated, 


HAWTHORNE 


36 

had an exceedingly common-sensible way of look- 
ing at matters. “Do not tell me of making live 
figures out of snow. Come, wife ; this little 
stranger must not stay out in the bleak air a mo- 
ment longer. We will bring her into the parlor; 
and you shall give her a supper of warm bread 
and milk, and make her as comfortable as you 
can. Meanwhile, I will inquire among the 
neighbors; or, if necessary, send the city-crier 
about the streets to give notice of a lost child.” 

So saying, this honest and very kind-hearted 
man was going toward the little white damsel, 
with the best intentions in the world. But Violet 
and Peony, each seizing their father by the hand, 
earnestly besought him not to make her come in. 

“Dear father,” cried Violet, putting herself 
before him, “it is true what I have been telling 
you! This is our little snow-girl, and she cannot 
live any longer than while she breathes the cold 
west-wind. Do not make her come into the hot 
room!” 

“Yes, father,” shouted Peony, stamping his 
little foot, so mightily was he in earnest, “this 
be nothing but our ’ittle snow-child! She will 
not love the hot fire!” 

“Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense!” 
cried the father, half vexed, half laughing at what 
he considered their foolish obstinacy. “Run into 
the house this moment! It is too late to play 
any longer now. I must take care of this little 
girl immediately, or she will catch her death- 
a-cold!” 

“Husband! dear husband!” said his wife, in 
a low voice — for she had been looking narrowly 
at the snow-child, and was more perplexed than 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 


37 

ever- — “there is something very singular in all 
this. You will think ine foolish — but — but — may 
it not be that some invisible angel has been 
attracted by the simplicity and good faith with 
which our children set about their undertaking? 
May he not have spent an hour of his immortal- 
ity in playing with those dear little souls, and 
so the result is what we call a miracle? No, no! 
Do not laugh at me; I see what a foolish thought 
it is!” 

“My dear wife,” replied the husband, laughing 
heartily, “you are as much a child as Violet and 
Peony. ” 

And in one sense so she was, for all through 
life she had kept her heart full of childlike sim- 
plicity and faith, which was as pure and clear as 
crystal ; and, looking at all matters through this 
transparent medium, she sometimes saw truths 
so profound that other people laughed at them 
as nonsense and absurdity. 

But now kind Mr. Lindsey had entered the 
garden, breaking away from his two children, 
who still sent their shrill voices after him, be- 
seeching him to let the snow-child stay and enjoy 
herself in the cold west-wind. As he approached, 
the snow-birds took to flight. The little white 
damsel also fled backward, shaking her head, 
as if to say, “Pray, do not touch me!” and rogu- 
ishly, as it appeared, leading him through the 
deepest of the snow. Once the good man stum- 
bled, and floundered down upon his face, so that, 
gathering himself up again, with the snow stick- 
ing to his rough pilot-cloth sack, he looked as 
white and wintry as a snow-image of the largest 
size. Some of the neighbors, meanwhile, seeing 


HAWTHORNE 


38 

him from their windows, wondered what could 
possess poor Mr. Lindsey to be running about 
his garden in pursuit of a snow-drift, which the 
west-wind was driving hither and thither! At 
length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased 
the little stranger into a corner, where she could 
not possibly escape him. His wife had been look- 
ing on, and, it being nearly twilight, was wonder- 
struck to observe how the snow-child gleamed 
and sparkled, and how she seemed to shed a glow 
all round about her; and when driven into the 
corner she positively glistened like a star! It 
was a frosty kind of brightness, too, like that of 
an icicle in the moonlight. The wife thought it 
strange that good Mr. Lindsey should see nothing 
remarkable in the snow-child’s appearance. 

“Come, you odd little thing!” cried the honest 
man, seizing her by the hand; “I have caught 
you at last, and will make you comfortable in 
spite of yourself. We will put a nice warm pair 
of worsted stockings on your frozen little feet, 
and you shall have a good thick shawl to wrap 
yourself in. Your poor white nose, I am afraid, 
is actually frost-bitten. But we will make it all 
right. Come along in. ” 

And so, with a most benevolent smile on his 
sagacious visage, all purple as it was with the 
cold, this very well-meaning gentleman took the 
snow-child by the hand and led her toward the 
house. She followed him, droopingly and reluc- 
tant; for all the glow and sparkle was gone out 
of her figure; and whereas just before she had 
resembled a bright, frosty, star-gemmed evening, 
with a crimson gleam on the cold horizon, she 
now looked as dull and languid as a thaw. As 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 


39 

kind Mr. Lindsey led her up the steps to the 
door, Violet and Peony looked into his face — 
their eyes full of tears; which froze before they 
could run down their cheeks — and again entreated 
him not to bring their snow-image into the house. 

“Not bring her in!” exclaimed the kind- 
hearted man. “Why, you are crazy, my little 
Violet! — quite crazy, my small Peony! She is so 
cold, already, that her hand has almost frozen 
mine, in spite of my thick gloves. Would you 
have her freeze to death?” 

His wife, as he came up the steps, had been 
taking another long, earnest, almost awe-stricken, 
gaze at the little white stranger. She hardly 
knew whether it was a dream or no; but she 
could not help fancying that she saw the delicate 
print of Violet’s fingers on the child’s neck. It 
looked just as if, while Violet was shaping out 
the image, she had given it a gentle pat with her 
hand, and had neglected to smooth, the impres- 
sion quite away. 

“After all, husband,” said the mother, recur- 
ring to her idea that the angels would be as much 
delighted to play with Violet and Peony as she 
herself was, “after all, she does look strangely 
like a snow-image! I do believe she is made of 
snow !” 

A puff of the west-wind blew against the snow- 
child, and again she sparkled like a star. 

“Snow!” repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing 
the reluctant guest over his hospitable threshold. 
“No wonder she looks like snow. She is half 
frozen, poor little thing! But a good fire will 
put everything to rights!” 

Without further talk, and always with the 


' HAWTHORNE 


40 

same best intentions, this highly benevolent and 
common-sensible individual led the little white 
damsel — drooping, drooping, drooping, more and 
more — out of the frosty air, and into his com- 
fortable parlor. A Heidenberg stove, filled to 
the brim with intensely burning anthracite, was 
sending a bright gleam through the isinglass of 
its iron door, and causing the vase of water on 
its top to fume and bubble with excitement. 
A warm, sultry smell was diffused through the 
room. A thermometer on the wall farthest from 
the stove stood at eighty degrees. The parlor 
was hung with red curtains, and covered with 
a red carpet, and looked just as warm as it felt. 
The difference betwixt the atmosphere here and 
the cold, wintry twilight out of doors was like 
stepping at once from Nova Zembla to the hot- 
test part of India, or from the North Pole into 
an oven. Oh, this was a fine place for the little 
white stranger! 

The common-sensible man placed the snow- 
child on the hearth-rug, right in front of the 
hissing and fuming stove. 

“Now she will be comfortable!” cried Mr. 
Lindsey, rubbing his hands and looking about 
him, with the pleasantest smile you ever saw. 
“Make yourself at home, my child.” 

Sad, sad and drooping, looked the little white 
maiden as she stood on the hearth-rug, with the 
hot blast of the stove striking through her like 
a pestilence. Once she threw a glance wistfully 
toward the windows, and caught a glimpse 
through its red curtains of the snow-covered 
roofs, and the stars glimmering frostily, and all 
the delicious intensity of the cold night. The 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 


41 

bleak wind rattled the window-panes, as if it 
were summoning her to come forth. But there 
stood the snow-child, drooping, before the hot 
stove ! 

But the common-sensible man saw nothing 
amiss. 

“Come, wife,” said he, “let her have a pair 
of thick stockings and a woolen shawl or blanket 
directly ; and tell Dora to give her some warm 
supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet 
and Peony, amuse your little friend. She is out 
of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a strange 
place. For my part, I will go around among the 
neighbors. and find out where she belongs.” 

The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of 
the shawl and stockings; for her own view of the 
matter, however subtle and delicate, had given 
way, as it always did, to the stubborn material- 
ism of her husband. Without heeding the 
remonstrances of his two children, who still kept 
murmuring that their little snow-sister did not 
love the warmth, good Mr. Lindsey took his de- 
parture, shutting the parlor door carefully be- 
hind him. Turning up the collar of his sack 
over his ears, he emerged from the house, and 
had barely reached the street gate when he was 
recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and 
the rapping of a thimbled finger against the par- 
lor window. 

“Husband! husband!” cried his wife, show- 
ing her horror-stricken face through the window- 
panes. “There is no need of going for the 
child’s parents !” 

“We told you so, father!” screamed Violet 
and Peony, as he reentered the parlor. “You 


HAWTHORNE 


42 

would bring her in ; and now our poor — dear — 
beau-ti-ful little snow-sister is thawed!” 

And their own sweet little faces were already 
dissolved in tears; so that their father, seeing 
what strange things occasionally happen in this 
everyday world, felt not a little anxious lest his 
children might be going to thaw too! In the 
utmost perplexity he demanded an explanation of 
his wife. She could only reply, that being sum- 
moned to the parlor by the cries of Violet and 
Peony, she found no trace of the little white 
maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of 
snow, which, while she was gazing at it, melted 
quite away upon the hearth-rug. 

“And there you see all that is left of it!” 
added she, pointing to a pool of water in front 
of the stove. 

“Yes, father,” said Violet, looking reproach- 
fully at him through her tears; “there is all that 
is left of our dear little snow-sister!” 

“Naughty father!” cried Peony, stamping his 
foot, and — I shudder to say — shaking his little 
fist at the common-sensible man. “We told you 
how it would be! What for did you bring her 
in?” 

And the Heidenberg stove, through the isin- 
glass of its door, seemed to glare at good Mr. 
Lindsey, like a red-eyed demon triumphing in 
the mischief which it had done! 

This, you will observe, was one of those rare 
cases, which yet will occasionally happen, where 
common-sense finds itself at fault. The remark- 
able story of the snow-image, though to that 
sagacious class of people to whom good Mr. 
Lindsey belongs it may seem but a childish 


THE SNOW-IMAGE 


43 

affair, is, nevertheless, capable of being moral- 
ized in various methods, greatly for their edifica- 
tion. One of its lessons, for instance, might be, 
that it behooves men, and especially men of 
benevolence, to consider well what they are 
about, and before acting on their philanthropic 
purposes, to be quite sure that they comprehend 
the nature and all the relations of the business in 
hand. What has been established as an element 
of good to one being may prove absolute mischief 
to another ; even as the warmth of the parlor was 
proper enough for children of flesh and blood, 
like Violet and Peony — though by no means very 
wholesome, even for them — but involved nothing 
short of annihilation to the unfortunate snow- 
image. 

But, after all, there is no teaching anything to 
wise men of good Mr. Lindsey’s stamp. They 
know everything — oh, to be sure! — everything 
that has been, and everything that is, and every- 
thing that, by any future possibility, can be. 
And should some phenomenon of nature or 
providence transcend their system, they will not 
recognize it, even if it come to pass under their 
very noses. 

“Wife,” said Mr. Lindsey, after a fit of silence, 
“see what a quantity of snow the children have 
brought in on their feet! It has made quite 
a puddle here before the stove. Pray tell Dora 
to bring some towels and sop it up!” 


THE GREAT STONE FACE. 


One afternoon, when the sun was going down, 
a mother and her little boy sat at the door of 
their cottage, talking about the Great Stone 
Face. They had but to lift their eyes, and there 
it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with 
the sunshine brightening all its features. 

And what was the Great Stone Face? 

Embosomed amongst a family of lofty moun- 
tains, there was a valley so spacious that it con- 
tained many thousand inhabitants. Some of 
these good people dwelt in log huts, with the 
black forest all around them, on the steep and 
difficult hillsides. Others had their homes in 
comfortable farmhouses, and cultivated the rich 
soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the 
valley. Others, again, were congregated into 
populous villages, where some wild highland 
rivulet, tumbling down from its birthplace in the 
upper mountain region, had been caught and 
tamed by human cunning, and compelled to turn 
the machinery of cotton factories. The inhab- 
itants of this valley, in short, were numerous, 
and of many modes of life. But all of them, 
grown people and children, had a kind of famil- 
iarity with the Great Stone Face, although some 
possessed the gift of distinguishing this grand 


44 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 45 

natural phenomenon more perfectly than many of 
their neighbors. 

The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of 
Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, 
formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain 
by some immense rocks, which had been thrown 
together in such a position as, when viewed at 
a proper distance, precisely to resemble the fea- 
tures of the human countenance. It seemed as 
if an enormous giant, or a Titan, had sculptured 
his own likeness on the precipice. There was 
the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet 
in height; the nose, with its long bridge; and 
the vast lips, which, if they could have spoken, 
would have rolled their thunder accents from one 
end of the valley to the other. True it is, that 
if the spectator approached too near, he lost the 
outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern 
only a heap of ponderous and giantic rocks, piled 
in chaotic ruin one upon another. Retracing his 
steps, however, the wondrous features would 
again be seen; and the farther he withdrew from 
them, the more like a human face, with all its 
original divinity intact, did they appear, until, as 
it grew dim in the distance, with the clouds and 
glorified vapor of the mountains clustering about 
it, the Great Stone Face seemed positively to be 
alive. 

It was a happy lot for children to grow up to 
manhood or womanhood with the Great Stone 
Face before their eyes, for all the features were 
noble, and the expression was at once grand and 
sweet, as if it were the glow of a vast, warm 
heart that embraced all mankind in its affections 
and had room for more. It was an education 


HAWTHORNE 


46 

only to look at it. According to the belief of 
many people, the valley owed much of its fertility 
to this benign aspect that was continually beam- 
ing over it, illuminating the clouds and infusing 
its tenderness into the sunshine. 

As we began with saying, a mother and her lit- 
tle boy sat at their cottage door, gazing at the 
Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The 
child’s name was Ernest. 

“Mother,” said he, while the Titanic visage 
smiled on him, “I wish that it could speak, for it 
looks so very kindly that its voice must needs be 
pleasant. If I were to see a man with such 
a face, I should love him dearly.” 

“If an o'ld prophecy should come to pass,” 
answered his mother, “we may see a man, some 
time or other, with exactly such a face as that.” 

“What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?” 
eagerly inquired Ernest. “Pray tell me all 
about it!’* 

So his mother told him a story that her own 
mother had told to her when she herself was 
younger than little Ernest; a story, not of things 
that were past, but of what was yet to come ; a 
story, nevertheless, so very old, that even the 
Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had 
heard it from their forefathers, to whom, as they 
affirmed, it had been murmured by the mountain 
streams and whispered by the wind among the 
treetops. The purport was that at some future 
day a child should be born hereabouts who was 
destined to become the greatest and noblest per- 
sonage of his time, and whose countenance in 
manhood should bear an exact resemblance to 
the Great Stone Face. Not a few old-fashioned 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 47 

people/ and young ones likewise, in the ardor of 
their hopes, still cherished an enduring faith in 
this old prophecy. But others, who had seen 
more of the world, had watched and waited till 
they were weary, and had beheld no man with 
such a face, nor any man that proved to be much 
greater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded 
it to be nothing but an idle tale. At all events, 
the great man of the prophecy had not yet 
appeared. 

“O mother, dear mother!” cried Ernest, clap- 
ping his hands above his head, ‘‘I do hope that 
I shall live to see him!” 

His mother was an affectionate and thoughtful 
woman, and felt that it was wisest not to discour- 
age the generous hopes of her little boy. So she 
only said to him, “Perhaps you may.” 

And Ernest never forgot the story that his 
mother told him. It was always in his mind, 
whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. 
He spent his childhood in the log cottage where 
he was born, and was dutiful to his mother, and 
helpful to her in many things, assisting her much 
with his little hands, and more with his loving 
heart. In this manner, from a happy yet often 
pensive child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet, 
unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in 
the fields, but with more intelligence brighten- 
ing his aspect than is seen in many lads who have 
been taught at famous schools. Yet Ernest 
had had no teacher, save only that the Great 
Stone Face became one to him. When the toil 
of the day was over, he would gaze at it for 
hours, until he began to imagine that those vast 
features recognized him, and gave him a smile 


HAWTHORNE 


48 

of kindness and encouragement, responsive to his 
own look of veneration. We must not take upon 
us to affirm that this was a mistake, although 
the Face may have looked no more kindly at 
Ernest than at all the world besides. But the 
secret was that the boy’s tender and confiding 
simplicity discerned what other people could not 
see ; and thus the love which was meant for all 
became his peculiar portion. 

About this time there went a rumor through- 
out the valley that the great man, foretold from 
ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to 
the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It 
seems that many years before a young man had 
migrated from the valley and settled at a distant 
seaport, where, after getting together a little 
money, he had set up as a shopkeeper. His 
name — but I could never learn whether it was 
his real one or a nickname that had grown out 
of his habits and success in life — was Gather- 
gold. Being shrewd and active, and endowed by 
Providence with that inscrutable faculty which 
develops itself in what the world calls luck, he 
became an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner 
of a whole fleet of bulky-bottomed ships. All the 
countries of the globe appeared to join hands for 
the mere purpose of adding heap after heap to 
the mountainous accumulation of this one man’s 
wealth. The cold regions of the North, almost 
within the gloom and shadow of the Arctic Cir- 
cle, sent him their tribute in the shape of furs; 
hot Africa sifted for him the golden sands of her 
rivers, and gathered up the ivory tusks of her 
great elephants out of the forests ; the East came 
bringing him the rich shawls and spices and teas. 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 49 

and the effulgence of diamonds, and the gleam- 
ing purity of large pearls. The ocean, not to be 
behindhand with the earth, yielded up her mighty 
whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil 
and make a profit on it. Be the original com- 
modity what it might, it was gold within his 
grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas in 
the fable, that whatever he touched with his 
finger immediately glistened and grew yellow, 
and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, 
which suited him still better, into piles of coin. 
And when Mr. Gathergold had become so very 
rich that it would have taken him a hundred 
years only to count his wealth, he bethought him- 
self of his native valley, and resolved to go back 
thither and end his days where he was born. 
With this purpose in view, he sent a skillful archi- 
tect to build him such a palace as should be fit 
for a man of his vast wealth to live in. 

As I have said above, it had already been 
rumored in the valley that Mr. Gathergold had 
turned out to be the prophetic personage so long 
and vainly looked for, and that his visage was 
the perfect and undeniable similitude of the 
Great Stone Face. People were the more ready 
to believe that this must needs be the fact when 
they beheld the splendid edifice that arose, as if 
by enchantment, on the site of his father’s old 
weather-beaten farmhouse. The exterior was of 
marble, so dazzlingly white that it seemed as 
though the whole structure might melt away in 
the sunshine, like those humbler ones which Mr. 
Gathergold, in his young play-days, before his 
fingers were gifted with the touch of transmuta- 
tion, had been accustomed to build of snow. It 


HAWTHORNE 


50 

had a richly ornamented portico, supported by 
tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty door, 
studded with silver knobs, and made of a kind of 
variegated wood that had been brought from be- 
yond the sea. The windows, from the floor to 
the ceiling of each stately apartment, were com- 
posed, respectively, of but one enormous pane of 
glass, so transparently pure that it was said to 
be a finer medium than even the vacant atmos- 
phere. Hardly anybody had been permitted to 
see the interior of this palace; but it was re- 
ported, and with good semblance of truth, to be 
far more gorgeous than the outside, insomuch 
that whatever was iron or brass in other houses 
was silver or gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold’s 
bedchamber, especially, made such a glittering 
appearance that no ordinary man would have 
been able to close his eyes there. But, on the 
other hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so inured 
to wealth that perhaps he could not have closed 
his eyes unless where the gleam of it was certain 
to find its way beneath his eyelids. 

In due time the mansion was finished; next 
came the upholsterers, with magnificent furni- 
ture; then a whole troop of black and white 
servants, the harbingers of Mr. Gathergold, who, 
in his own majestic person, was expected to 
arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest, mean- 
while, had been deeply stirred by the idea that 
the great man, the noble man, the man of 
prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at 
length to be made manifest to his native valley. 
He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thou- 
sand ways in which Mr. Gathergold, with his 
vast wealth, might transform himself into an 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 51 

angel of beneficence, and assume a control over 
human affairs as wide and benignant as the smile 
of the Great Stone Face. Full of faith and hope, 
Ernest doubted not that what the people said was 
true, and that now he was to behold the living 
likeness of those wondrous features on the moun- 
tain-side. While the boy was still gazing up the 
valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the 
Great Stone Face returned his gaze and looked 
kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was heard 
approaching swiftly along the winding road. 

“Here he comes!” cried a group of people 
who were assembled to witness the arrival. 
“Here comes the great Mr, Gathergold!” 

A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round 
the turn of the road. Within it, thrust partly out 
of the window, appeared the physiognomy of the 
old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own 
Midas-hand had transmuted it. He had a low 
forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered about with 
innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which 
he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly 
together. 

“The very image of the Great Stone Face!” 
shouted the people. “Sure enough, the old 
prophecy is true, and here we have the great 
man come at last.” 

And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they 
seemed actually to believe that here was the 
likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside 
there chanced to be an old beggar-woman and 
two little beggar-children, stragglers from some 
far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, 
held out their hands and lifted up their doleful 
voices, most piteously beseeching charity. A 


HAWTHORNE 


52 

yellow claw — the very same that had clawed to- 
gether so much wealth — poked itself out of the 
coach-window and dropped some copper coins 
upon the ground ; so that, though the great man’s 
name seems to have been Gathergold, he might 
just as suitably have been nicknamed Scatter- 
copper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest 
shout, and evidently with as much good faith as 
ever, the people bellowed : 

“He is the very image of the Great Stone 
Face!’’ 

But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled 
shrewdness of that sordid visage, and gazed up 
the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded 
by the last sunbeams, he could still distinguish 
those glorious features which had impressed 
themselves into his soul. Their aspect cheered 
him. What did the benign lips seem to say? 

“He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man 
will come!’’ 

The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a 
boy. He had grown to be a young man now. 
He attracted little notice from the other inhab- 
itants of the valley ; for they saw nothing remark- 
able in his way of life, save that, when the labor 
of the day was over, he still loved to go apart 
and gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone 
Face. According to their idea of the matter, it 
was folly^ indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as 
Ernest was industrious, kind, and neighborly, 
and neglected no duty for the sake of indulging 
this idle habit. They knew not that the Great 
Stone Face had become a teacher to him, and 
that the sentiment which was expressed in it 
would enlarge the young man’s heart, and fill it 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 53 

with wider and deeper sympathies than other 
hearts. They knew not that thence would come 
a better wisdom than could be learned from 
books, and a better life than could be molded on 
the defaced example of other human lives. 
Neither did Ernest know that the thoughts and 
affections which came to him so naturally, in the 
fields and at the fireside, and wherever he com- 
muned with himself, were of a higher tone than 
those which all men shared with him. A simple 
soul — simple as when his mother first taught him 
the old prophecy — he beheld the marvelous fea- 
tures beaming adown the valley, and still won- 
dered that their human counterpart was so long 
in making his appearance. 

By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead 
and buried; and the oddest part of the matter 
was, that his wealth, which was the body and 
spirit of his existence, had disappeared before 
his death, leaving nothing of him but a living 
skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled yellow 
skin. Since the melting away of his gold, it had 
been very generally conceded that there was no 
such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the 
ignoble features of the ruined merchant and that 
majestic face upon the mountain-side. So the 
people ceased to honor him during his lifetime, 
and quietly consigned him to forgetfulness after 
his decease. Once in a while, it is true, his 
memory was brought up in connection with the 
magnificent palace which he had built, and which 
had long ago been turned into a hotel for the 
accommodation of strangers, multitudes of whom 
came every summer to visit that famous natural 
curiosity, the Great Stone Face. Thus, Mr, 


HAWTHORNE 


54 

Gathergold, being discredited and thrown into 
the shade, the man of prophecy was yet to 
come. 

It so happened that a native-born son of the 
valley, many years before, had enlisted as a sol- 
dier, and after a great deal of hard fighting had 
now become an illustrious commander. What- 
ever he may be called in history, he was known 
in camps and on the battlefield under the nick- 
name of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn 
veteran, being now infirm with age and wounds, 
and weary of the turmoil of a military life, and 
of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the 
trumpet that had so long been ringing in his ears, 
had lately signified a purpose of returning to his 
native valley, hoping to find repose where he 
remembered to have left it. The inhabitants, 
his old neighbors and their grown-up children, 
were resolved to welcome the renowned warrior 
with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and 
all the more enthusiastically, it being affirmed 
that now, at last, the likeness of the Great Stone 
Face had actually appeared. An aid-de-camp 
of Old Blood-and-Thunder, traveling through the 
valley, was said to have been struck with the re- 
semblance. Moreover, the schoolmates and early 
acquaintances of the general were ready to tes- 
tify, on oath, that, to the best of their recollec- 
tion, the aforesaid general had been exceedingly 
like the majestic image, even when a boy, only 
that the idea had never occurred to them at that 
period. Great, therefore, was the excitement 
throughout the valley; and many people who 
had never once thought of glancing at the Great 
Stone Face for years before, now spent their 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 55 

time in gazing at it, for the sake Of knowing ex- 
actly how General Blood-and-Thunder looked. 

On the day of the great festival, Ernest with 
all the other people of the valley left their work 
and proceeded to the spot where the sylvan ban- 
quet was prepared. As he approached, the loud 
voice of the Rev. Dr. Battleblast was heard, be- 
seeching a blessing on the good things set before 
them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in 
whose honor they were assembled. The tables 
were arranged in a cleared space of the woods, 
shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a 
vista opened eastward, and afforded a distant 
view of the Great Stone Face. Over the general’s 
chair, which was a relic from the home of Wash- 
ington, there was an arch of verdant boughs, 
with the laurel profusely intermixed, and sur- 
mounted by his country’s banner, beneath which 
he had won his victories. Our friend Ernest 
raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a 
glimpse of the celebrated guest; but there was a 
mighty crowd about the tables anxious to hear 
the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word 
that might fall from the general in reply ; and a 
volunteer company, doing duty as a guard, pricked 
ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particularly 
quiet person among the throng. So Ernest, being 
of an unobtrusive character, was thrust quite into 
the background, where he could see no more of 
Old Blood-and-Thunder’s physiognomy than if it 
had been still blazing on the battlefield. To con- 
sole himself he turned toward the Great Stone 
Face, which, like a faithful and long-remembered 
friend, looked back and smiled upon him through 
the vista of the forest. Meantime, however, he 


HAWTHORNE 


56 

could overhear the remarks of various individ- 
uals who were comparing the features of the 
hero with the face on the distant mountain-side. 

“ ’Tis the same face, to a hair!” cried one 
man, cutting a caper for joy. 

“Wonderfully like, that’s a fact!” responded 
another. 

“Like! why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder 
himself, in a monstrous looking-glass!” cried a 
third. “And why not? He’s the greatest man 
of this or any other age, beyond a doubt.” 

And then all three of the speakers gave a great 
shout, which communicated electricity to the 
crowd, and called forth a roar from a thousand 
voices, that went reverberating for miles among 
the mountains, until you might have supposed 
that the Great Stone Face had poured its thunder- 
breath into the cry. All these comments, and 
this vast enthusiasm, served the more to interest 
our friend; nor did he think of questioning that 
now, at length, the mountain-visage had found 
its human counterpart. It is true, Ernest had 
imagined that this long-looked-for personage 
would appear in the character of a man of peace, 
uttering wisdom, and doing good, and making 
people happy. But, taking an habitual breadth 
of view, with all his simplicity, he contended 
that Providence should choose its own method of 
blessing mankind, and could conceive that this 
great end might be effected even by a warrior 
and a bloody sword, should inscrutable wisdom 
see fit to order matters so. 

“The general! the general!” was now the cry. 
“Hush! silence! Old Blood-and-Thunder’s go- 
ing to make a speech.” 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 57 

Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the 
general’s health had been drunk, amid shouts of 
applause, and he now stood upon his feet to 
thank the ^company. Ernest saw him. There 
he was, over the shoulders of the crowd, from 
the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar 
upward, beneath the arch of green boughs with 
intertwined laurel, and the banner drooping as if 
to shade his brow ! And there, too, visible in the 
same glance, through the vista of the forest, ap- 
peared the Great Stone Face! And was there, 
indeed, such a resemblance as the crowd had 
testified? Alas, Ernest could not recognize it! 
He beheld a war-worn and weather-beaten coun- 
tenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron 
will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, 
tender sympathies, were altogether wanting in 
Old Blood-and-Thunder’s visage; and even if the 
Great Stone Face had assumed his look of stern 
command, the milder traits would still have tem- 
pered it. 

“This is not the man of prophecy,’’ sighed 
Ernest to himself, as he made his way out of the 
throng. “And must the world wait longer yet?” 

The mists had congregated about the distant 
mountain-side, and there were seen the grand 
and awful features of the Great Stone Face, awful 
but benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting 
among the hills, and enrobing himself in a cloud- 
vesture of gold and purple. As he looked, Ernest 
could hardly believe but that a smile beamed 
over the whole visage, with a radiance still 
brightening, although without motion of the lips. 
It was probably the effect of the western sun- 
shine melting through the thinly diffused vapors 


HAWTHORNE 


58 

that had swept between him and the object that 
he gazed at. But — as it always did — the aspect 
of his marvelous friend made Ernest as hopeful 
as if he had never hoped in vain. 

“Fear not, Ernest,” said his heart, even as if 
the Great Stone Face were whispering him — 
“fear not, Ernest, he will come.” 

More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. 
Ernest still dwelt in his native valley, and was 
now a man of middle age. By imperceptible de- 
grees, he had become known among the people. 
Now, as heretofore, he labored for his bread, 
and was the same simple-hearted man that he 
had always been. But he had thought and felt 
so much, he had given so many of the best hours 
of his life to unworldly hopes for some great good 
to mankind, that it seemed as though he had been 
talking with the angels, and had imbibed a por- 
tion of their wisdom unawares. It was visible 
in the calm and well-considered beneficence of 
his daily life, the quiet stream of which had made 
a wide green margin all along its course. Not 
a day passed by that the world was not the bet- 
ter because this man, humble as he was, had 
lived. He never stepped aside from his own 
path, yet would always reach a blessing to his 
neighbor. Almost involuntarily, too, he had 
become a preacher. The pure and high simplicity 
of his thought, which, as one of its manifesta- 
tions, took shape in the good deeds that dropped 
silently from his hand, flowed also forth in speech. 
He uttered truths that wrought upon and molded 
the lives of those who heard him. His auditors, 
it may be, never suspected that Ernest, their own 
neighbor and familiar friend, was more than an 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 59 

ordinary man; least of all did Ernest himself 
suspect it; but inevitably as the murmur of a 
rivulet, came thoughts out of his mouth that no 
other human lips had spoken. 

When the people’s minds had had a little time 
to cool, they were ready enough to acknowledge 
their mistake in imagining a similarity between 
General Blood-and-Thunder’s truculent physiog- 
nomy and the benign visage on the mountain- 
side. But now, again, there were reports and 
many paragraphs in the newspapers, affirming 
that the likeness of the Great Stone Face had 
appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain 
eminent statesman. ' He, like Mr. Gathergold 
and Old Blood-and-Thunder, was a native, of the 
valley, but had left it in his early days, and taken 
up the trades of law and politics. Instead of the 
rich man’s wealth and the warrior’s sword, he had 
but a tongue, and it was mightier than both to- 
gether. So wonderfully eloquent was he, that 
whatever he might choose to say, his auditors 
had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked 
like right, and right like wrong; for when it 
pleased him he could make a kind of illuminated 
fog with his mere breath, and obscure the natural 
daylight with it. His tongue, indeed, was a 
magic instrument; sometimes it rumbled like the 
thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest 
music. It was the blast of war — the song of 
peace; and it seemed to have a heart in it when 
there was no such matter. In good truth, he was 
a wondrous man; and when his tongue had 
acquired him all other imaginable success — when 
it had been heard in halls of state, and in the 
courts of princes and potentates — after it had 


6o 


HAWTHORNE 


made him known all over the world, even as a 
voice crying from shore to shore — it finally per- 
suaded his countrymen to select him for the 
Presidency. Before this time — indeed, as soon 
as he began to grow celebrated — his admirers had 
found out the resemblance between him and the 
Great Stone Face; and so much were they struck 
by it, that throughout the 'country this distin- 
guished gentleman was known by the name of 
Old Stony Phiz. The phrase was considered as 
giving a highly favorable aspect to his political 
prospects; for, as is likewise the case with the 
Popedom, nobody ever becomes President with- 
out taking a name other than his own. 

While his friends were doing their best to make 
him President, Old Stony Phiz, as he was called, 
set out on a visit to the valley where he was 
born. Of course, he had no other object than to 
shake hands with his fellow-citizens, and neither 
thought nor cared about any effect which his 
progress through the country might have upon 
the election. Magnificent preparations were 
made to receive the illustrious statesman ; a cav- 
alcade of horsemen set forth to meet him at the. 
boundary-line of the State, and all the people 
left their business and gathered along the way- 
side to see him pass. Among these was Ernest. 
Though more than once disappointed, as we have 
seen, he had such a hopeful and confiding nature 
that he was always ready to believe in whatever 
seemed beautiful and good. He kept his heart 
continually open, and thus was sure to catch the 
blessing from on high when it should -come. So 
now again, as buoyantly as ever, he went forth 
to behold the likeness of the Great Stone Face. 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 6i 


The cavalcade came prancing along the road, 
with a great clattering of hoofs and a mighty 
cloud of dust, which rose up so dense and high 
that the visage of the mountain-side was com- 
pletely hidden from Ernest’s eyes. All the great 
men of the neighborhood were there on horse- 
back; militia officers, in uniform; the member 
of Congress; the sheriff of the county; the 
editors of newspapers; and many a farmer, too, 
had mounted his patient steed, with his Sunday 
coat upon his back. It really was a very brilliant 
spectacle, especially as there were numerous ban- 
ners flaunting over the cavalcade, on some of 
which were gorgeous portraits of the illustrious 
statesman and the Great Stone Face, smiling 
familiarly at one another, like two brothers. 
If the pictures were to be trusted, the mutual 
resemblance, it must be confessed, was marvel- 
ous. We must not forget to mention that there 
was a band of music, which made the echoes of 
the mountains ring and reverberate with the loud 
triumph of its strains; so that airy and soul- 
thrilling melodies broke out among all the heights 
and hollows, as if every nook of his native valley 
had found a voice to welcome the distinguished 
guest. But the grandest effect was when the 
far-off mountain precipice flung back the music; 
for then the Great Stone Face itself seemed to 
be swelling the triumphant chorus, in acknowl- 
edgment that, at length, the man of prophecy 
was come. 

All this while the people were throwing up their 
hats and shouting, with enthusiasm so contagious 
that the heart of Ernest kindled up, and he like- 
wise threw up his hat and shouted as loudly as 


62 


HAWTHORNE 


the loudest, “Huzza for the great man! Huzza 
for Old Stony Phiz!” But as yet he had not 
seen him. 

“Here he is now!” cried those who stood near 
Ernest. “There! There! Look at Old Stony 
Phiz and then at the Old Man of the Mountain, 
and see if they are not as like as two twin 
brothers!” 

In the midst of all this gallant array came an 
open barouche, drawn by four white horses ; and 
in the barouche, with his massive head uncovered, 
sat the illustrious statesman. Old Stony Phiz him- 
self. 

“Confess it,” said one of Ernest’s neighbors to 
him, “the Great Stone Face has met its match 
at last!” 

Now, it must be owned that at his first glimpse 
of the countenance which was bowing and smil- 
ing from the barouche, Ernest did fancy that 
there was a resemblance between it and the old 
familiar face upon the mountain-side. The 
brow, with its massive depth and loftiness, and 
all the other features, indeed, were boldly and 
strongly hewn, as if in emulation of a more than 
heroic, of a Titanic model. But the sublimity 
and stateliness, the grand expression of a divine 
sympathy, that illuminated the mountain visage 
and etherealized its ponderous granite substance 
into spirit, might here be sought in vain. Some- 
thing had been originally left out, or had de- 
parted. And therefore the marvelously gifted 
statesman had always a weary gloom in the deep 
caverns of his eyes, as of a child that has out- 
grown its playthings, or a man of mighty faculties 
and little aims, whose life, with all its high per- 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 63 

formances, was vague and empty, because no 
high purpose had endowed it with reality. 

Still, Ernest’s neighbor was thrusting his elbow 
into his side, and pressing him for an answer. 

“Confess ! confess ! Is not he the very picture 
of your Old Man of the Mountain?” 

“No!” said Ernest, bluntly; “I see little or no 
likeness.” 

“Then so much the worse for the Great Stone 
Face!” answered his neighbor; and again he set 
up a shout for Old Stony Phiz. 

But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and 
almost despondent; for this was the saddest of 
his disappointments, to behold a man who might 
have fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed 
to do so. Meantime, the cavalcade, the ban- 
ners, the music, and the barouches swept past 
him, with the vociferous crowd in the rear, leav- 
ing the dust to settle down, and the Great Stone 
Face to be revealed again, with the grandeur 
that it had worn for untold centuries. , 

“Lo, here I am, Ernest!” the benign lips 
seemed to say. “I have waited longer than thou, 
and am not yet weary. Fear not; the man will 
come. ” 

The years hurried onward, treading in their 
haste on one another’s heels. And now they 
began to bring white hairs and scatter them 
over the head of Ernest; they made reverend 
wrinkles across his forehead, and furrows in his 
cheeks. He was an aged man. But not in vain 
had he grown old ; more than the white hairs on 
his head were the sage thoughts in his mind ; his 
wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that Time 
had graved, and in which he had written legends 


HAWTHORNE 


64 

of wisdom that had been tested by the tenor of 
a life. And Ernest had ceased to be obscure. 
Unsought for, undesired, had come the fame 
which so many seek, and made him known in the 
great world beyond the limits of the valley in 
which he had dwelt so quietly. College profes- 
sors, and even the active men of cities, came 
from far to see and converse with Ernest; for 
the report had gone abroad that this simple hus- 
bandman had ideas unlike those of other men, 
not gained from books, but of a higher tone — 
a tranquil and familiar majesty, as if he had 
been talking with the angels as his daily friends. 
Whether it were sage, statesman, or philan- 
thropist, Ernest received these visitors with the 
gentle sincerity that had characterized him from 
boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever 
came uppermost or lay deepest in his heart or 
their own. While they talked together, his face 
would kindle, unawares, and shine upon them as 
with a mild evening light. Pensive with the 
fullness of such discourse, his guests took leave 
and went their way; and passing up the valley, 
paused to look at the Great Stone Face, imagin- 
ing that they had seen its likeness in a human 
countenance, but could not remember where. 

While Ernest had been growing up and grow- 
ing old, a bountiful Providence had granted a new 
poet to this earth. He likewise was a native of 
the valley, but had spent the greater part of his 
life at a distance from that romantic region, pour- 
ing out his sweet music amid the bustle and din 
of cities. Often, however, did the mountains 
which had been familiar to him in his childhood 
lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 65 

of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone 
Face forgotten, for the poet had celebrated it in 
an ode which was grand enough to have been 
uttered by its own majestic lips. This man of 
genius, we may say, had come down from heaven 
with wonderful endowments. If he sang of 
a mountain, the eyes of all mankind beheld 
a mightier grandeur reposing on its breast, or 
soaring to its summit, than had before been seen 
there. If his theme were a lovely lake, a celestial 
smile had now been thrown over it, to gleam for- 
ever on its surface. If it were the vast old sea, 
even the deep immensity of its dread bosom 
seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by the 
emotions of the song. Thus the world assumed 
another and a better aspect from the hour that 
the poet blessed it with his happy eyes. The 
Creator had bestowed him, as the last best touch 
to his own handiwork. Creation was not finished 
till the poet came to interpret, and so com- 
plete it. 

The effect was no less high and beautiful 
when his human brethren were the subject of his 
verse. The man or woman, sordid with the 
common dust of life, who crossed his daily path, 
and the little child who played in it, were glori- 
fied if be beheld them in his mood of poetic 
faith. He showed the golden links of the great 
chain that intertwined them with an angelic 
kindred; he brought out the hidden traits of 
celestial birth that made them worthy of such 
kin. Some, indeed, there were who thought to 
show the soundness of their judgment by affirm- 
ing that all the beauty and dignity of the natural 
world existed only in the poet’s fancy. Let such 


66 


HAWTHORNE 


men speak for themselves, who undoubtedly 
appear to have been spawned forth by Nature with 
a contemptuous bitterness ; she having plastered 
them up out of her refuse stuff, after all the 
swine were made. As respects all things else, 
the poet’s ideal was the truest truth. 

The songs of this poet found their way to 
Ernest. He read them, after his customary toil, 
seated on the bench before his cottage door, 
where for such a length of time he had filled his 
repose with thought by gazing at the Great Stone 
Face. And now, as he read stanzas that caused 
the soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to 
the vast countenance beaming on him so benig- 
nantly. 

“O majestic friend,” he murmured, addressing 
the Great Stone Face, “is not this man worthy 
to resemble thee?” 

The face seemed to smile, but answered not 
a word. 

Now it happened that the poet, though he 
dwelt so far away, had not only heard of Ernest, 
but had meditated much upon his character, until 
he deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this 
man whose untaught wisdom walked hand in 
hand with the noble simplicity of his life. One 
summer morning, therefore, he took passage by 
the railroad, and in the decline of the afternoon 
alighted from the cars at no great distance from 
Ernest’s cottage. The great hotel, which had 
formerly been the palace of Mr. Gathergold, was 
close at hand, but the poet, with his carpetbag 
on his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, 
and was resolved to be accepted as his guest. 

Approaching the door, he there found the good 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 67 

old man, holding a volume in his hand, which 
alternately he read, and then, with a finger be- 
tween the leaves, looked lovingly at the Great 
Stone Face. 

“Good evening,” said the poet. “Can you 
give a traveler a night’s lodging?” 

“Willingly,” answered Ernest; and then he 
added, smiling, “Methinks I never saw the Great 
Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger.” 

The poet sat down on the bench beside him, 
and he and Ernest talked together. Often had 
the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and 
the wisest, but never before with a man like 
Ernest, whose thoughts and feelings gushed up 
with such a natural freedom, and who made great 
truths so familiar by his simple utterance of 
them. Angels, as had been so often said, seemed 
to have wrought with him at his labor in the 
fields; and, dwelling with angels as friend with 
friends, he had imbibed the sublimity of their 
ideas, and imbued it with the sweet and lowly 
charm of household words. So thought the 
poet. And Ernest, on the other hand, was 
moved and agitated by the living images which 
the poet flung out of his mind, and which peopled 
all the air about the cottage door with shapes of 
beauty, both gay and pensive. The sympathies 
of these two men instructed them with a pro- 
founder sense than either could have attained 
alone. Their minds accorded into one strain, 
and made delightful music which neither of them 
could have claimed as all his own, nor distin- 
guished his own share from the other’s. They 
led one another, as it were, into a high pavilion 
of their thoughts, so remote, and hitherto so 


68 


HAWTHORNE 


dim, that they had never entered it before, and 
so beautiful that they desired to be there always. 

As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined 
that the Great Stone Face was bending forward 
to listen too. He gazed earnestly into the 
poet’s glowing eyes. 

“Who are you, my strangely gifted guest?” he 
said. 

The poet laid his finger on the volume that 
Ernest had been reading. 

“You have read these poems,” said he. 
“You know me, then — for I wrote them.” 

Again, and still more earnestly than before, 
Ernest examined the poet’s features; then turned 
toward the Great Stone Face; then back, with 
an uncertain aspect, to his guest. But his coun- 
tenance fell; he shook his head, and sighed. 

“Wherefore are you sad?” inquired the poet. 

“Because,” replied Ernest, “all through life 
I have awaited the fulfillment of a prophecy; and 
when I read these poems I hoped that it might 
be fulfilled in you. ” 

“You hoped,” answered the poet, faintly 
smiling, “to find in me the likeness of the Great 
Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as for- 
merly with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and- 
Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes, Ernest, it 
is my doom. You must add my name to the 
illustrious three, and record another failure of 
your hopes. For — in shame and sadness do 
I speak it, Ernest — I am not worthy to be typi- 
fied by yonder benign and majestic image.” 

“And why?” asked Ernest. He pointed to 
the volume. “Are not those thoughts divine?” 

“They have a strain of the Divinity,” replied 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 69 

the poet. “You can hear in them the far-off 
echo of a heavenly song. But my life, dear 
Ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. 
I have had grand dreams, but they have been 
only dreams, because I have lived — and that, too, 
by my own choice — among poor and mean real- 
ities. Sometimes even — shall I dare to say it? — 
I lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the 
goodness which my own works are said to have 
made more evident in nature and in human life. 
Why, then, pure seeker of the good and true, 
shouldst thou hope to find me in yonder image 
of the divine?” The poet spoke sadly, and his 
eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise, were 
those of Ernest. 

At the hour of sunset, as had long been his 
frequent custom, Ernest was to discourse to an 
assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the 
open air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still 
talking together as they went along, proceeded to 
the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, 
with a gray precipice behind, the stern front of 
which was relieved by the pleasant foliage of 
many creeping plants that made a tapestry for 
the naked rock by hanging their festoons from 
all its rugged angles. At a small elevation 
above the ground, set in a rich framework of 
verdure, there appeared a niche, spacious enough 
to admit a human figure, with freedom for such 
gestures as spontaneously accompany earnest 
thought and genuine emotion. Into this natural 
pulpit Ernest ascended, and threw a look of 
familiar kindness around upon his audience. 
They stood or sat, or reclined upon the grass, 
as seemed good to each, with the departing sun- 


HAWTHORNE 


70 

shine falling obliquely over them, and mingling 
its subdued cheerfulness- with the solemnity of a 
grove of ancient trees, beneath and amid the 
boughs of which the golden rays were constrained 
to pass. In another direction was seen the 
Great Stone Face, with the same cheer, com- 
bined with the same solemnity, in its benignant 
aspect. 

Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of 
what was in his heart and mind. His words had 
power, because they accorded with his thoughts ; 
and his thoughts had reality and depth, because 
they harmonized with the life which he had 
always lived. It was not mere breath that this 
preacher uttered; they were the words of life, 
because a life of good deeds and holy love was 
melted into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had 
been dissolved into this precious draught. The 
poet, as he listened, felt that the being and 
character of Ernest were a nobler strain of 
poetry than he had ever written. His eyes 
glistening with tears, he gazed reverentially at 
the venerable man, and said within himself that 
never was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet 
and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful coun- 
tenance, with the glory of white hair diffused 
about it. At a distance, but distinctly to be 
seen, high up in the golden light of the setting 
sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with hoary 
mists around it, like the white hairs around the 
brow of Ernest. Its look of grand beneficence 
seemed to embrace the world. 

At that moment, in sympathy with a thought 
which he was about to utter, the face of Ernest 
assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued 


THE GREAT STONE FACE 71 

with benevolence, that the poet, by an irresist- 
ible impulse, threw his arms aloft, and shouted : 

“Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the 
likeness of the Great Stone Face!” 

Then all the people looked, and saw that what 
the deep-sighted poet said was true. The prophecy 
was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what 
he had to say, took the poet’s arm, and walked 
slowly homeward, still hoping that some wiser 
and better man than himself would by and by 
appear bearing a resemblance to the Great 
Stone Face. 


HOWE’S MASQUERADE 


One afternoon last summer, while walking 
along Washington Street, my eye was attracted 
by a signboard protruding over a narrow archway, 
nearly opposite the Old South Church. The sign 
represented the front of a stately edifice, which 
was designated as the “Old Province House, 
kept by Thomas Waite.” I was glad to be thus 
reminded of a purpose, long entertained, of visit- 
ing and rambling over the mansion of the old 
royal governors of Massachusetts; and entering 
the arched passage, which penetrated through the 
middle of a brick row of shops, a few steps trans- 
ported me from the busy heart of modern Boston 
into a small and secluded courtyard. One side 
of this space was occupied by the square front of 
the Province House, three stories high, and sur- 
mounted by a cupola, on the top of which a gilded 
Indian was discernible, with his bow bent and his 
arrow on the string, as if aiming at the weather- v 
cock on the spire of the Old South. The figure 
has kept this attitude for seventy years or more, 
ever since good Deacon Drowne, a cunning carver 
of wood, first stationed him on his long sentinel’s 
watch over the city. 

The Province House is constructed of brick, 
which seems recently to have been overlaid with 
a coat of light-colored paint. A flight of red 
72 


HOWE’S MASQUERADE 73 

freestone steps, fenced in by a balustrade of 
curiously wrought iron, ascends from the court- 
yard to the spacious porch, over which is a bal- 
cony, with an iron balustrade of similar pattern 
and workmanship to that beneath. These letters 
and figures — 16 P. S. 79 — are wrought into the 
ironwork of the balcony, and probably express 
the date of the edifice, with the initials of its 
founder’s name. A wide door with double leaves 
admitted me into the hall or entry, on the right 
of which is the entrance to the barroom. 

It was in this apartment, I presume, that the 
ancient governors held their levees, with vice- 
regal pomp, surrounded by the military men, the 
councilors, the judges, and other officers of the 
crown, while all the loyalty of the province 
thronged to do them honor. But the room, in 
its present condition, cannot boast even of faded 
magnificence. The paneled wainscot is covered 
with dingy paint, and acquires a duskier hue from 
the deep shadow into which the Province House 
is thrown by the brick block that shuts it in from 
Washington Street. A ray of sunshine never 
visits this apartment any more than the glare of 
the festal torches which have been extinguished 
from the era of the Revolution. The most ven- 
erable and ornamental object is a chimney-piece 
set round with Dutch tiles of blue-figured china, 
representing scenes from Scripture; and, for 
aught I know, the lady of Pownall or Bernard 
may have sat beside the fireplace, and told her 
children the story of each blue tile. A bar in 
modern style, well replenished with decanters, 
bottles, cigar-boxes, and network bags of lemons, 
and provided with a beer-pump and a soda-fount. 


HAWTHORNE 


74 

extends along one side of the room. At my 
entrance, an elderly person was smacking his 
lips with a zest which satisfied me that the cellars 
of the Province House still hold good liquor, 
though doubtless of other vintages than were 
quaffed by the old governors. After sipping 
a glass of port sangaree, prepared by the skillful 
hands of Mr. Thomas Waite, I besought that 
worthy successor and representative of so many 
historic personages to conduct me over their time- 
honored mansion. 

He readily complied; but, to confess the truth, 
I was forced to draw strenuously upon my imag- 
ination, in order to find aught that was interesting 
in a house which, without its historic associations, 
would have seemed merely such a tavern as is 
usually favored by the custom of decent city 
boarders and old-fashioned country gentlemen. 
The chambers, which were probably spacious in 
former times, are now cut up by partitions, and 
subdivided into little nooks, each affording scanty 
room for the narrow bed and chair and dressing- 
table of a single lodger. The great staircase, how- 
ever, may be termed, without much hyperbole, 
a feature of grandeur and magnificence. It winds 
through the midst of the house by flights of 
broad steps, each flight terminating in a square 
landing-place, whence the ascent is continued 
toward the cupola. A carved balustrade, freshly 
painted in the lower stories, but growing dingier 
as we ascend, borders the staircase with its 
quaintly twisted and intertwined pillars, from 
top to bottom. Up these stairs the military 
boots, or perchance the gouty shoes, of many a 
governor have trodden, as the wearers mounted 


HOWE’S MASQUERADE 75 

to the cupola, which afforded them so wide a view 
over their metropolis and the surrounding coun- 
try. The cupola is an octagon, with several 
windows, and a door opening upon the roof. 
From this station, as I pleased myself with imag- 
ining, Gage may have beheld his disastrous vic- 
tory on Bunker Hill (unless one of the tri-moun- 
tains intervened), and Howe have marked the 
approaches of Washington’s besieging army; 
although the buildings, since erected in the 
vicinity, have shut out almost every object, save 
the steeple of the Old South, which seems almost 
within arm’s length. Descending from the 
cupola, I paused in the garret to observe the pon- 
derous white-oak framework, so much more mas- 
sive than the frames of modern houses, and 
thereby resembling an antique skeleton. The 
brick walls, the materials of which were imported 
from Holland, and the timbers of the mansion, 
are still as sound as ever; but the floors and other 
interior parts being greatly decayed, it is con- 
templated to gut the whole, and build a new 
house within the ancient frame and brickwork. 
Among other incoveniences of the present edifice, 
mine host mentioned that any jar or motion was 
apt to shake down the dust of ages out of the 
ceiling of one chamber upon the floor of that 
beneath it. 

We stepped forth from the great front window 
into the balcony, where, in old times, it was 
doubtless the custom of the king’s representative 
to show himself to a loyal populace, requiting 
their huzzas and tossed-up hats with stately bend- 
ings of his dignified person. In those days, the 
front of the Province House looked upon the 


HAWTHORNE 


76 

street; and the whole site now occupied by the 
brick range of stores, as well as the present court- 
yard, was laid out in grass-plats, overshadowed 
by trees and bordered by a wrought-iron fence. 
Now, the old aristocratic edifice hides its time- 
worn visage behind an upstart modern building; 
at one of the back windows I observed some 
pretty tailoresses, sewing and chatting and laugh- 
ing, with now and then a careless glance toward 
the balcony. Descending thence, we again 
entered the barroom, where the elderly gentle- 
man above mentioned, the smack of whose lips 
had spoken so favorably for Mr. Waite’s good 
liquor, was still lounging in his chair. He seemed 
to be, if not a lodger, at least a familiar visitor 
of the house, who might be supposed to have his 
regular score at the bar, his summer seat at the 
open window, and his prescriptive corner at the 
winter’s fireside. Being of a sociable aspect, I 
ventured to address him with a remark, calcu- 
lated to draw forth his historical reminiscences, 
if any such were in his mind ; and it gratified me 
to discover that, between memory and tradition, 
the old gentleman was really possessed of some 
very pleasant gossip about the Province House. 
The portion of his talk which chiefly interested 
me was the outline of the following legend. He 
professed to have received it at one or two 
removes from an eye-witness; but this derivation, 
together with the lapse of time, must have 
afforded opportunities for many variations of the 
narrative ; so that despairing of literal and abso- 
lute truth, I have not scrupled to make such 
further changes as seemed conducive to the 
reader’s profit and delight. 


HOWE’S MASQUERADE 77 

At one of the entertainments given at the 
Province House during the latter part of the siege 
of Boston, there passed a scene which has never 
yet been satisfactorily explained. The officers' 
of the British army, and the loyal gentry of the 
province, most of whom were collected within the 
beleagured town, had been invited to a masked 
ball; for it was the policy of Sir William Howe 
to hide the distress and danger of the period, and 
the desperate aspect of the siege, under an 
ostentation of festivity. The spectacle of this 
evening, if the oldest members of the provincial 
court circle might be believed, was the most gay 
and gorgeous affair that had occurred in the 
annals of the government. The brilliantly 
lighted apartments were thronged with figures 
that seemed to have stepped from the dark can- 
vas of historic portraits, or to have flitted forth 
from the magic pages of romance, or at least to 
have flown hither from one of the London the- 
aters, without a change of garments. Steeled 
knights of the Conquest, bearded statesmen of 
Queen Elizabeth, and high-ruffled ladies of her 
court were mingled .with characters of comedy, 
such as a party-colored Merry Andrew, jingling 
his cap and bells; a Falstaff, almost as provoc- 
ative of laughter as his prototype, and a Don 
Quixote, with a bean-pole for a lance and a potlid 
for a shield. 

But the broadest merriment was excited by 
a group of figures ridiculously dressed in old 
regimentals, which seemed to have been pur- 
chased at a military rag-fair, or pilfered from 
some receptacle of the cast-off clothes of both the 
French and British armies. Portions of their 


HAWTHORNE 


78 

attire had probably been worn at the siege of 
Louisburg, and the coats of most recent cut 
might have been rent and tattered by sword, 
ball, or bayonet, as long ago as Wolfe’s victory. 
One of these worthies — a tall, lank figure, bran- 
dishing a rusty sword of immense longitude — 
purported to be no less a personage than General 
George Washington; and the other principal 
officers of the American army, such as Gates, 
Lee, Putnam, Schuyler, Ward, and Heath, were 
represented by similar scarecrows. An interview 
in the mock-heroic style between the rebel 
warriors and the British commander-in-chief was 
received with immense applause, which came 
loudest of all from the loyalists of the colony. 
There was one of the guests, however, who stood 
apart, eying these antics sternly and scornfully, 
at once with a frown and a bitter smile. 

It was an old man, formerly of high station and 
great repute in the province, and who had been 
a very famous soldier in his day. Some surprise 
had been expressed that a person of Colonel 
Joliffe’s known whig principles, though now too 
old to take an active part in the contest, should 
have remained in Boston during the siege, and 
especially that he should consent to show himself 
in the mansion of Sir William Howe. But thither 
he had come, with a fair granddaughter under 
his arm; and there, amid all the mirth and buf- 
foonery, stood this stern old figure, the best sus- 
tained character in the masquerade, because so 
well representing the antique spirit of his native 
land. The other guests affirmed that Colonel 
Joliffe’s black puritanical scowl threw a shadow 
round about him; although in spite of his somber 


HOWE’S MASQUERADE 79 

influence their gayety continued to blaze higher, 
like (an ominous comparison) the flickering bril- 
liancy of a lamp which has but a little while to 
burn. Eleven strokes, full half an hour ago, had 
pealed from the clock of the Old South, when 
a rumor was circulated among the company that 
some new spectacle or pageant was about to be 
exhibited, which should put a fitting close to the 
splendid festivities of the night. 

“What new jest has your Excellency in hand?” 
asked the Rev. Mather Byles, whose Presbyterian 
scruples had not kept him from the entertain- 
ment. “Trust me, sir, I have already laughed 
more than beseems my cloth, at your Homeric 
confabulation with yonder ragamufiin general 
of the rebels. One other such fit of merri- 
ment and I must throw off my clerical wig and 
band. ’’ 

“Not so, good Dr. Byles,” answered Sir Wil- 
liam Howe; “if mirth were a crime, you had 
never gained your doctorate in divinity. As to 
this new foolery, I know no more about it than 
yourself ; perhaps not so much. Honestly now, 
Doctor, have you not stirred up the sober brains 
of some of your countrymen to enact a scene in 
our masquerade?” 

“Perhaps,” slyly remarked the granddaughter 
of Colonel Joliffe, whose high spirit had been 
stung by many taunts against New England — 
“perhaps we are to have a mask of allegorical 
figures. Victory, with trophies from Lexington 
and Bunker Hill; Plenty, with her overflowing 
horn, to typify the present abundance in this 
good town; and Glory, with a wreath for his 
Excellency’s brow.” 


8o 


HAWTHORNE 


Sir William Howe smiled at words which he 
would have answered with one of his darkest 
frowns had they been uttered by lips that wore 
a beard. He was spared the necessity of a retort 
by a singular interruption. A sound of music 
was heard without the house, as if proceeding 
from a full band of military instruments stationed 
in the street, playing, not such a festal strain as 
was suited to the occasion, but a slow funeral 
march. The drums appeared to be muffled, and 
the trumpets poured forth a wailing breath, which 
at once hushed the merriment of the auditors, 
filling all with wonder and some with apprehen- 
sion. The idea occurred to many that either the 
funeral procession of some great personage had 
halted in front of the Province House, or that 
a corpse, in a velvet-covered and gorgeously 
decorated coffin, was about to be borne from the 
portal. After listening a moment. Sir William 
Howe called, in a stern voice, to the leader of 
the musicians, who had hitherto enlivened the 
entertainment with gay and lightsome melodies. 
The man was drum-major to one of the British 
regiments. 

“Dighton,” demanded the general, “what 
means this foolery? Bid your band silence that 
dead march, or, by my word, they shall have 
sufficient cause for their lugubrious strains! 
Silence it, sirrah!” 

“Please, your Honor,” answered the drum- 
major, whose rubicund visage had lost all its 
color, “the fault is none of mine. I and my 
band are all here together, and I question whether 
there be a man of us that could play that march 
without book. I never heard it but once before, 


HOWE’S MASQUERADE 8i 

and that was at the funeral of his late Majesty, 
King George the Second.” 

‘‘Well, well!” said Sir William Howe, recov- 
ering his composure; ‘‘it is the prelude to some 
masquerading antic. Let it pass.” 

A figure now presented itself, but among the 
many fantastic masks that were dispersed through 
the apartments none could tell precisely from 
whence it came. It was a man in an old-fash- 
ioned dress of black serge, and having the aspect 
of a steward or principal domestic in the house- 
hold of a nobleman or great English landholder. 
This figure advanced to the outer door of the 
mansion, and throwing both its leaves wide open, 
withdrew a little to one side and looked back 
toward the grand staircase, as if expecting some 
person to descend. At the same time, the music 
in the street sounded a loud and doleful sum- 
mons. The eyes of Sir William Howe and his 
guests being directed to the staircase, there ap- 
peared, on the uppermost landing-place that was 
discernible from the bottom, several personages 
descending toward the door. The foremost was 
a man of stern visage, wearing a steeple-crowned 
hat and a skullcap beneath it; a dark cloak, and 
huge wrinkled boots that came half-way up his 
legs. Under his arm was a rolled-up banner, 
which seemed to be the banner of England, but 
strangely rent and torn ; he had a sword in his 
right hand, and grasped a Bible in his left. The 
next figure was of milder aspect, yet full of dig- 
nity, wearing a broad ruff, over which descended 
a beard, a gown of wrought velvet, and a doublet 
and hose of black satin. He carried a roll of 
manuscript in his hand. Close behind these two 


82 


HAWTHORNE 


came a young man of very striking countenance 
and demeanor, with deep thought and contem- 
plation on his brow, and perhaps a flash of 
enthusiasm in his eye. His garb, like that of his 
predecessors, was of an antique fashion, and there 
was a stain of blood upon his ruff. In the same 
group with these were three or four others, all 
men of dignity and evident command, and bear- 
ing themselves like personages who were accus- 
tomed to the gaze of the multitude. It was the 
idea of the beholders that these figures went to 
join the mysterious funeral that had halted in 
front of the Province House ; yet that supposition 
seemed to be contradicted by the air of triumph 
with which, they waved their hands as they 
crossed the threshold and vanished through the 
portal. 

“In the Devil’s name, what is this?” muttered 
Sir William Howe to a gentleman beside him; 
“a procession of the regicide judges of King 
Charles the martyr?” 

“These,” said Colonel Joliffe, breaking silence 
almost for the first time that evening — “these, if 
I interpret them aright, are the Puritan gov- 
ernors — the rulers of the old, original democracy 
of Massachusetts. Endicott, with the banner 
from which he had torn the symbol of subjection, 
and Winthorp, and Sir Henry Vane, and Dudley, 
Haynes, Bellingham, and Leverett. ” 

“Why had that young man a stain of blood 
upon his ruff?” asked Miss Joliffe. 

“Because in after years,” answered her grand- 
father, “he laid down the wisest head in England 
upon the block for the principles of liberty.” 

“Will not your Excellency order out the 


HOWE’S MASQUERADE 83 

guard?” whispered Lord Percy, who, with other 
British officers, had now assembled round the 
general. ‘‘There may be a plot under this mum- 
mery. ” 

‘‘Tush! we have nothing to fear,” carelessly 
replied Sir William Howe. ‘‘There can be no 
worse treason in the matter than a jest, and that 
somewhat of the dullest. Even were it a sharp 
and bitter one, our best policy would be to laugh 
it off. See, here come more of these gentry.” 

Another group of characters had now partly 
descended the staircase. The first was a vener- 
able and white-bearded patriarch, who cautiously 
felt his way downward with a staff. Treading 
hastily behind him, and stretching forth his 
guantleted hand as if to grasp the old man’s 
shoulder, came a tall, soldier-like figure, equipped 
with a plumed cap of steel, a bright breastplate, 
and a long sword, which rattled against the stairs. 
Next was seen a stout man, dressed in rich and 
courtly attire, but not of courtly demeanor; his 
gait had the swinging motion of a seaman’s walk; 
and chancing to stumble on the staircase, he sud- 
denly grew wrathful, and was heard to mutter an 
oath. He was followed by a noble-looking per- 
sonage in a curled wig, such as are represented 
in the portraits of Queen Anne’s time and earlier; 
and the breast of his coat was decorated with an 
embroidered star. While advancing to the door 
he bowed to the right hand and to the left, in 
a very gracious and insinuating style; but as he 
crossed the threshold, unlike the early Puritan 
governors, he seemed to wring his hands with 
sorrow. 

‘‘Prithee, play the part of a chorus, good Dr. 


84 HAWTHORNE 

Byles, ” said Sir William Howe. “What worthies 
are these?” 

“If it please your Excellency, they lived some- 
what before my day,” answered the Doctor; 
“but doubtless our friend, the Colonel, has been 
hand in glove with them. ” 

“Their livingfacesi never looked upon,” said 
Colonel Joliffe, gravely; “although I have spoken 
face to face with many rulers of this land, and 
shall greet yet another with an old man’s blessing 
ere I die. But we talk of these figures. I take 
the venerable partriarch to be Bradstreet, the 
last of the Puritans, who was governor at ninety, 
or thereabouts. The next is Sir Edmund Andros, 
a tyrant, as any New England schoolboy will 
tell you; and therefore the people cast him down 
from his high seat into a dungeon. ' Then comes 
Sir William Phipps, shepherd, cooper, sea-cap- 
tain, and governor; may many of his countrymen 
rise as high from as low an origin ! Lastly, you 
saw the gracious Earl of Bellamont, who ruled 
us under King William.” 

“But what is the meaning of it all?” asked 
Lord Percy. 

“Now, were I a rebel,” said Miss Joliffe, half 
aloud, “I might fancy that the ghosts of these 
ancient governors had been summoned to form 
the funeral procession of royal authority in New 
England. ” 

Several other figures were now seen at the 
turn of the staircase. The one in advance had 
a thoughtful, anxious, and somewhat crafty 
expression of face; and in spite of his loftiness 
of manner, which was evidently the result both 
of an ambitious spirit and of long continuance in 


HOWE’S MASQUERADE 85 

high stations, he seemed not incapable of cring- 
ing to a greater than himself. A few steps 
behind came an officer in a scarlet and embroid- 
ered uniform, cut in a fashion old enough to have 
been worn by the Duke of Marlborough. His 
nose had a rubicund tinge, which, together with 
the twinkle of his eye, might have marked him 
as a lover of the wine-cup and good-fellowship; 
notwithstanding which tokens, he appeared ill at 
ease, and often glanced around him, as if appre- 
hensive of some secret mischief. Next came 
a portly gentleman, wearing a coat of shaggy 
cloth, lined with silken velvet; he had sense, 
shrewdness, and humor in his face, and a folio 
volume under his arm ; but his aspect was that of 
a man vexed and tormented beyond all patience 
and harassed almost to death. He went hastily 
down, and was followed by a dignified person, 
dressed in a purple velvet suit, with very rich 
embroidery; his demeanor would have possessed 
much stateliness, only that a grievous fit of the 
gout compelled him to hobble from stair to stair, 
with contortions of face and body. When Dr. 
Byles beheld this figure on the staircase, he 
shivered as with an ague, but continued to watch 
him steadfastly, until the gouty gentleman had 
reached the threshold, made a gesture of anguish 
and despair, and vanished into the outer gloom, 
whither the funeral music summoned him. 

“Governor Belcher! — my old patron! — in his 
very shape and dress!’’ gasped Dr. Byles. “This 
is an awful mockery!’’ 

“A tedious foolery, rather, ’’ said Sir William 
Howe, with an air of indifference. “But who 
were the three that preceded him?’’ 


86 


HAWTHORNE 


“Governor Dudley, a cunning politician — yet 
his craft once brought him to a prison,” replied 
Colonel Joliffe; “Governor Shute, formerly 
a colonel under Marlborough, and whom the 
people frightened out of the province ; and learned 
Governor Burnet, whom the Legislature tor- 
mented into a mortal fever.” 

“Methinks they were miserable men, these 
royal governors of Massachusetts,” observed 
Miss Joliffe. “Heavens, how dim the light 
grows ! ’ ’ 

It was certainly a fact that the large lamp 
which illuminated the staircase now burned dim 
and duskily; so that several figures, which passed 
hastily down the stairs and went forth from the 
porch, appeared rather like shadows than persons 
of fleshly substance. Sir William Howe and his 
guests stood at the doors of the contiguous 
apartments, watching the progress of this singu- 
lar pageant, with various emotions of anger, 
contempt, or half-acknowledged fear, but still 
with an anxious curiosity. The shapes which 
now seemed hastening to join the mysterious pro- 
cession were recognized rather by striking pecu- 
liarities of dress or broad characteristics of 
manner than by any perceptible resemblance of 
features to their prototypes. Their faces, indeed, 
were invariably kept in deep shadow. But Dr. 
Byles, and other gentlemen who had long been 
familiar with the successive rulers of the province, 
were heard to whisper the names of Shirley, of 
Pownall, of Sir Francis Bernard, and of the well- 
remembered Hutchinson, thereby confessing that 
the actors, whoever they might be, in this spec- 
tral march of governors, had succeeded in put- 


HOWE’S MASQUERADE 87 

ting on some distant portraiture of the real per- 
sonages. As they vanished from the door, still 
did these shadows toss their arms into the gloom 
of night, with a dread expression of woe. Fol- 
lowing the mimic representative of Hutchinson 
came a military figure, holding before his face 
the cocked hat which he had taken from his 
powdered head ; but his epaulets and other 
insignia of rank were those of a general 
officer ; and something in his mien reminded 
the beholders of one who had recently been 
master of the Province House, and chief of all 
the land. 

“The shape of Gage, as true as in a looking- 
glass!” exclaimed Lord Percy, turning pale. 

“No, surely,” cried Miss Joliffe, laughing 
hysterically; “it could not be Gage, or Sir Wil- 
liam would have greeted his old comrade in arms ! 
Perhaps he will not suffer the next to pass un- 
challenged. ” 

“Of that be assured, young lady,” answered 
Sir William Howe, fixing his eyes, with a very 
marked expression, upon the immovable visage 
of her grandfather. “I have long enough de- 
layed to pay the ceremonies of a host to these 
departing guests. The next that takes his leave 
shall receive due courtesy.” 

A wild and dreary burst of music came through 
the open door. It seemed as if the procession, 
which had been gradually filling up its ranks, 
were now about to move, and that this loud peal 
of the wailing trumpets and roll of the muffled 
drums were a call to some loiterer to make haste. 
Many eyes, by an irresistible impulse, were turned 
upon Sir William Howe, as if it were he whom 


88 


HAWTHORNE 


the dreary music summoned to the funeral of 
departed power. 

“See! — here comes the last!” whispered Miss 
Joliffe, pointing her tremulous finger to the 
staircase. 

A figure had come into view as if descending 
the stairs, although so dusky was the region 
whence it emerged some of the spectators fancied 
that they had seen this human shape suddenly 
molding itself amid the gloom. Downward the 
figure came, with a stately and martial tread, and 
reaching the lowest stair was observed to be 
a tall man, booted and wrapped in a military 
cloak, which was drawn up around the face so as 
to meet the flapped brim of a laced hat. The 
features, therefore, were completely hidden. 
But the iBritish officers deemed that they had seen 
that military cloak before, and even recognized 
the frayed embroidery on the collar, as well as 
the gilded scabbard of a sword which protruded 
from the folds of the cloak, and glittered in 
a vivid gleam of light. Apart from these trifling 
particulars, there were characteristics of gait and 
bearing which impelled the wondering guests to 
glance from the shrouded figure to Sir William 
Howe, as if to satisfy themselves that their host 
had not suddenly vanished from the midst of them. 

With a dark flush of wrath upon his brow, they 
saw the general draw his sword and advance to 
meet the figure in the cloak before the latter had 
stepped one pace upon the floor. 

“Villain, unmuffle yourself!” cried he. “You 
pass no farther!” 

The figure, without blenching a hair’s-breadth 
from the sword which was pointed at his breast. 


HOWE’S MASQUERADE 89 

made a solemn pause and lowered the cape of the 
cloak from about his face, yet not sufficiently for 
the spectators to catch a glimpse of it. But Sir 
William Howe had evidently seen enough. The 
sternness of his countenance gave place to a look 
of wild amazement, if not horror, while he 
recoiled several steps from the figure and let fall 
his sword upon the floor. The martial shape 
again drew the cloak about his features and 
passed on ; but reaching the threshold, with his 
back toward the spectators, he was seen to stamp 
his foot and shake his clinched hands in the air. 
It was afterward affirmed that Sir William Howe 
had repeated that self-same gesture of rage and 
sorrow when, for the last time, and as the last 
royal governor, he passed through the portal of 
the Province House. 

“Hark! — the procession moves,” said Miss 
Joliffe. 

The music was dying away along the street, 
and its dismal strains were mingled with the knell 
of midnight from the steeple of the Old South, 
and with the roar of artillery, which announced 
that the beleaguering army of Washington had 
intrenched itself upon a nearer height than be- 
fore. As the deep boom of the cannon smote 
upon his ear. Colonel Joliffe raised himself to the 
full height of his aged form and smiled sternly 
on the British general. 

“Would your Excellency inquire further into 
the mystery of the pageant?” said he. 

“Take care of your gray head!” cried Sir Wil- 
liam Howe, fiercely, though with a quivering lip. 
“It has stood too long on a traitor’s shoulders!” 

“You must make haste to chop it off, then,” 


HAWTHORNE 


90 

calmly replied the Colonel; “for a few hours 
longer, and not all the power of Sir William 
Howe, nor of his master, shall cause one of these 
gray hairs to fall. The empire of Britain in this 
ancient province is at its last gasp to-night; 
almost while I speak it is a dead corpse, and me- 
thinks the shadows of the old governors are fit 
mourners at its funeral!*’ 

With these words Colonel Joliffe threw on his 
cloak, and drawing his granddaughter’s arm 
within his own, retired from the last festival 
that a British ruler ever held in the old province 
of Massachusetts Bay. It was supposed that the 
Colonel and the young lady possessed some secret 
intelligence in regard to the mysterious pageant 
of that night. However this might be, such 
knowledge has never become general. The 
actors in the scene have vanished into deeper 
obscurity than even that wild Indian band who 
scattered the cargoes of the tea-ships on the 
waves and gained a place in history, yet left no 
names. But superstition, among other legends 
of this mansion, repeats the wondrous tale* that 
on the anniversary night of Britain’s discom- 
fiture the ghosts of the ancient governors of 
Massachusetts still glide through the portal of 
the Province House. And last of all, comes 
a figure shrouded in a military cloak, tossing his 
clinched hands into the air, and stamping his 
iron-shod boots , upon the broad freestone steps 
with a semblance of feverish despair, but without 
the sound of a foot-tramp. 


When the truth-telling accents of the elderly 
gentleman were hushed, I drew a long breath and 


HOWE’S MASQUERADE 91 

looked round the room, striving, with the best 
energy of my imagination, to throw a tinge of 
romance and historic grandeur over the realities 
of the scene. But my nostrils snuffed up a scent 
of cigar-smoke, clouds of which the narrator had 
emitted by way of visible emblem, I suppose, of 
the nebulous obscurity of his tale. Moreover, 
my gorgeous fantasies were wofully disturbed by 
the rattling of the spoon in a tumbler of whisky 
punch, which Mr. Thomas Waite was mingling 
for a customer. Nor did it add to the pictur- 
esque appearance of the paneled walls that the 
slate of the Brookline stage was suspended 
against them, instead of the armorial escutcheon 
of some far-descended governor. A stage-driver 
sat at one of the windows, reading a penny paper 
of the day — the Boston Times — and presenting 
a figure which could nowise be brought into any 
picture of “times in Boston” seventy or a hun- 
dred years ago. On the window-seat lay a bun- 
dle, neatly done up in brown paper, the direction 
of which I had the idle curiosity to read, “Miss 
Susan Huggins, at the Province House.” 
A pretty chambermaid, no doubt. In truth, it 
is desperately hard work when we attempt to 
throw the spell of hoar antiquity over localities 
with which the living world, and the day that is 
passing over us, have aught to do. Yet, as 
I glanced at the stately staircase, down which 
the procession of the old governors had de- 
scended, and as I emerged through the venerable 
portal, whence their figures had preceded me, it 
gladdened me to be conscious of a thrill of awe. 
Then diving through the narrow archway, a few 
strides transported me into the densest throng 
of Washington Street. 


BROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE 


One sunshiny morning in the good old times 
of the town of Boston, a young carver in wood, 
well known by the name of Drowne, stood con- 
templating a large oaken log, which it was his 
purpose to convert into the figurehead of a vessel. 
And while he discussed within his own mind 
what sort of shape or similitude it were well to 
bestow upon this excellent piece of timber, there 
came into Browne’s workshop a certain Captain 
Hunnewell, owner and commander of the good 
brig called the Cynosure, which had just returned 
from her first voyage to Fayal. 

“Ah! that will do, Drowne, that will do!” 
cried the jolly captain, tapping the log with his 
rattan. “I bespeak this very piece of oak for 
the figurehead of the Cynosure. She has shown 
herself the sweetest craft that ever floated, and 
I mean to decorate her prow with the handsom- 
est image that the skill of man can cut out of 
timber. And, Drowne, you are the fellow to 
execute it. ” 

“You give me more credit than I deserve, Cap- 
tain Hunnewell,” said the carver, modestly, yet 
as one conscious of eminence in his art. “But 
for the sake of the good brig, I stand ready to do 
my best. And which of these designs do you 
prefer? Here,” — pointing to a staring, half- 

92 


BROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE 93 

length figure, in a white wig and scarlet coat — 
“here is an excellent model, the likeness of our 
gracious king. Here is the valiant Admiral Ver- 
non. Or, if you prefer a female figure, what say 
you to Britannia with the trident?” 

“All very fine, Browne; all very fine,” an- 
swered the mariner. “But as nothing like the 
brig ever swam the ocean, so I am determined 
she shall have such a figurehead as old Neptune 
never saw in his life. And what is more, as 
there is a secret in the matter, you must pledge 
your credit not to betray it.” 

“Certainly,” said Browne, marveling, how- 
ever, what possible mystery there could be in 
reference to an affair so open, of necessity, to the 
inspection of all the world as the figurehead of 
a vessel. “You may depend, captain, on my 
being as secret as the nature of the case will 
permit. ” 

Captain Hunnewell then took Browne by the 
button, and communicated his wishes in so low 
a tone that it would be unmannerly to repeat 
what was evidently intended for the carver’s pri- 
vate ear. We shall, therefore, take the oppor- 
tunity to give the reader a few desirable particu- 
lars about Browne himself. 

He was the first American who is known to 
have attempted — in a very humble line, it is true 
— that art in which we can now reckon so many 
names already distinguished or rising to distinc- 
tion. From his earliest boyhood he had exhib- 
ited a knack — for it would be too proud a word 
to call it genius — a knack, therefore, for the imi- 
tation of the human figure in whatever material 
came most readily to hand. The snows of a New 


HAWTHORNE 


94 

England winter had often supplied him with 
a species of marble as dazzingly white, at least, 
as the Parian or the Carrara, and if less durable, 
yet sufficiently so to correspond with any claims 
to permanent existence possessed by the boy’s 
frozen statues. Yet they won admiration from 
maturer judges than his schoolfellows, and were 
indeed remarkably clever, though destitute of the 
native warmth that might have made the snow 
melt beneath his hand. As he advanced in life, 
the young man adopted pine and oak as eligible 
materials for the display of his skill, which now 
began to bring him a return of solid silver as well 
as the empty praise that had been an apt reward 
enough for his productions of evanescent snow. 
He became noted for carving ornamental pump- 
heads, and wooden urns for gate-posts, and deco- 
rations more grotesque than fanciful for mantel- 
pieces. No apothecary would have deemed him- 
self in the way of obtaining custom without 
setting up a gilded mortar, if not a head of Galen 
or Hippocrates, from the skillful hand of Drowne. 

But the great scope of his business lay in the 
manufacture of figureheads for vessels. Whether 
it were the monarch himself, or some famous 
British admiral or general, or the governor of the 
province, or perchance the favorite daughter of 
the ship-owner, there the image stood above the 
prow, decked out in gorgeous colors, magnifi- 
cently gilded, and staring the whole world out of 
countenance, as if from an innate consciousness 
of its own superiority. These specimens of 
native sculpture had crossed the sea in all direc- 
tions, and been not ignobly noticed among the 
crowded shipping of the Thames and wherever 


DROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE 95 

else the hardy mariners of New England had 
pushed their adventures. It must be confessed 
that a family likeness pervaded these respectable 
progeny of Drowne’s skill; that the benign coun- 
tenance of the king resembled those of his sub- 
jects, and that Miss Peggy Hobart, the mer- 
chant’s daughter, bore a remarkable similitude 
to Britannia, Victory, and other ladies of the 
allegoric sisterhood; and finally, that they all 
had a kind of wooden aspect which proved an 
intimate relationship with the unshaped blocks 
of timber in the carver’s workshop. But at least 
there was no inconsiderable skill of hand, nor a 
deficiency of any attribute to render them really 
works of art, except that deep quality, be it of 
soul or intellect, which bestows life upon the 
lifeless and warmth upon the cold, and which, 
had it been present, would have made Drowne’s 
wooden image instinct with spirit. 

The captain of the Cynosure had now finished 
his instructions. 

“And Drowne, ’’ said he, impressively, “you 
must lay aside all other business and set about 
this forthwith. And as to the price, only do the 
job in first-rate style, and you shall settle that 
point yourself. ’’ 

“Very well, captain,’’ answered the carver, 
who looked grave and somewhat perplexed, yet 
had a sort of smile upon his visage; “depend 
upon it. I’ll do my utmost to satisfy you.’’ 

From that moment the men of taste about 
Long Wharf and the Town Dock who were wont 
to show their love for the arts by frequent 
visits to Drowne’s workshop, and admiration of 
his wooden images, began to be sensible of a mys- 


HAWTHORNE 


96 

tery in the carver’s conduct. Often he was absent 
in the daytime. Sometimes, as might be judged 
by gleams of light from the shop windows, he 
was at work until a late hour of the evening, 
although neither knock nor voice, on such occa- 
sions, could gain admittance for a visitor or elicit 
any word of response. Nothing remarkable, 
however, was observed in the shop at those hours 
when it was thrown open. A fine piece of tim- 
ber, indeed, which Drowne was known to have 
reserved for some work of especial dignity, was 
seen to be gradually assuming shape. What 
shape it was destined ultimately to take was 
a problem to his friends and a point on which 
the carvdjui himself preserved a rigid silence. But 
day after day, though Drowne was seldom noticed 
in the act of working upon it, this rude form 
began to be developed until it became evident to 
all observers that a female figure was growing 
into mimic life. At each new visit they beheld 
a larger pile of wooden chips and a nearer approx- 
imation to something beautiful. It seemed as if 
the hamadryad of the oak had sheltered herself 
from the unimaginative world within the heart of 
her native tree, and that it was only necessary 
to remove the strange shapelessness that had 
incrusted her, and reveal the grace and loveliness 
of a divinity. Imperfect as the design, the atti- 
tude, the costume, and especially the face of the 
image, still remained, there was already an effect 
that drew the eye from the wooden cleverness of 
Drowne’s earlier productions and fixed it upon 
the tantalizing mystery of this new project. 

Copley, the celebrated painter, then a young 
man and a re-sident of Boston, came one day to 


DROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE 97 

visit Drowne'; for he had recognized so much of 
moderate ability in the carver as to induce him, 
in the dearth of professional sympathy, to culti- 
vate his acquaintance. On entering the shop, 
the artist glanced at the inflexible image of king, 
commander, dame, and allegory that stood 
around, on the best of which might have been 
bestowed the questionable praise that it looked 
as if a living man had here been changed to 
wood, and that not only the physical, but the 
intellectual and spiritual, part partook of the 
stolid transformation. But in not a single 
instance did it seem as if the wood were imbibing 
the ethereal essence of humanity. What a wide 
distinction is here ! and how far would the slight- 
est portion of’ the latter merit have outvalued the 
utmost degree of the former! 

“My friend Drowne,” said Copley, smiling to 
himself, but alluding to the mechanical and 
wooden cleverness that so invariably distin- 
guished the images, “you are really a remarkable 
person ! I have seldom met with a man in your 
line of business that could do so much ; for one 
other touch might make this figure of General 
Wolfe, for instance, a breathing and intelligent 
human creature.” 

“You would have me think that you are prais- 
ing me highly, Mr. Copley, ’ ’ answered Drowne, 
turning his back upon Wolfe’s image in apparent 
disgust. “But there has come a light into my 
mind. I know, what you know as well, that the 
one touch which you speak of as deficient is the 
only one that would be truly valuable, and that 
without it these works of mine are no better than 
worthless abortions. There is the same differ- 


HAWTHORNE 


98 

ence between them and the works of an inspired 
artist as between a sign-post daub and one of 
your best pictures.” 

“This is strange,” cried Copley, looking him 
in the face, which now, as the painter fancied, 
had a singular depth of intelligence, though hith- 
erto it had not given him greatly the advantage 
over his own family of wooden images. “What 
has come over you? How is it that, possessing 
the idea which you have now uttered, you should 
produce only such works as these?” 

The carver smiled, but made no reply. Copley 
turned again to the images, conceiving that the 
sense of deficiency which Drowne had just 
expressed, and which is so rare in a merely me- 
chanical character, must surely imply a genius, 
the tokens of which had heretofore been over- 
looked. But no; there was not a trace of it. 
He was about to withdraw, when his eyes chanced 
to fall upon a half-developed figure which lay in 
a corner of the workshop, surrounded by scat- 
tered chips of oak. It arrested him at once. 

“What is here? Who has done this?” he broke 
out, after contemplating it in speechless astonish- 
ment for an instant. “Here is the divine, the 
life-giving touch. What inspired hand is beck- 
oning this wood to arise and live? Whose work 
is this? 

“No man’s work,” replied Drowne. “The 
figure lies within that block of oak, and it is my 
business to find it. ” 

“Drowne,” said the true artist, grasping the 
carver fervently by the hand, “you are a man of 
genius!” 

As Copley departed, happening to glance back- 


DROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE 99 

ward from the threshold, he beheld Drowne 
bending over the half-created shape, and stretch- 
ing forth his arms as if he would have embraced 
and drawn it to his heart, while, had such a 
miracle been possible, his countenance expressed 
passion enough to communicate warmth and sen- 
sibility to the lifeless oak. 

“Strange enough!” said the artist to himself. 
“Who would have looked for a modern Pyg- 
malion in the person of a Yankee mechanic!” 

As yet the image was but vague in its outward 
presentment; so that as in the cloud shapes 
around the western sun the observer rather felt, 
or was led to imagine, than really saw what was 
intended by it. Day by day, however, the work 
assumed greater precision, and settled its irregu- 
lar and misty outline into distincter grace and 
beauty. The general design was now obvious to 
the common eye. It was a female figure, in what 
appeared to be a foreign dress, the gown being 
laced over the bosom, and opening in front so as 
to disclose a skirt or petticoat, the folds and ine- 
qualities of which were admirably represented 
in the oaken substance. She wore a hat of singu- 
lar gracefulness, and abundantly laden with flow- 
ers, such as never grew in the rude soil of New 
England, but which, with all their fanciful lux- 
uriance, had a natural truth that it seemed im- 
possible for the most fertile imagination to have 
attained without copying from real prototypes. 
There were several little appendages to this 
dress, such as a fan, a pair of earrings, a chain 
about the neck, a watch in the bosom, and a ring 
upon the finger, all of which would have been 
deemed beneath the dignity of sculpture. They 


lOO 


HAWTHORNE 


were put on, however, with as much taste as 
a lovely woman might have shown in her attire, 
and could therefore have shocked none but 
a judgment spoiled by artistic rules. 

The face was still imperfect; but gradually, 
by a magic touch, intelligence and sensibility 
brightened through the features, with all the 
effect of light gleaming forth from within the 
solid oak. The face became alive. It was 
a beautiful, though not precisely regular and 
somewhat haughty aspect, but with a certain 
piquancy about the eyes and mouth, which, of 
all expressions, would have seemed the most 
impossible to throw over a wooden countenance. 
And now, so far as carving went, this wonderful 
production was complete. 

“Drowne,” said Copley, who had hardly 
missed a single day in his visits to the carver’s 
workshop, “if this work were in marble it would 
make you famous at once; nay, I would almost 
affirm that it would make an era in the art. It 
is as ideal as an antique statue, and yet as real 
as any lovely woman whom one meets at a fire- 
side or in the street. But I trust you do not 
mean to desecrate this exquisite creature with 
paint, like those staring kings and admirals 
yonder?’’ 

“Not paint her!’’ exclaimed Captain Hunne- 
well, who stood by; “not paint the figurehead of 
the Cynosure 1 And what sort of a figure should 
I cut in a foreign port with such an unpainted 
oaken stick as this over my prow! She must and 
she shall be painted to the life, from the topmost 
flower in her hat down to the silver spangles on 
her slippers. ’’ 


DROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE 101 


“Mr. Copley,” said Drowne, quietly, “I know 
nothing of marble statuary, and nothing of the 
sculptor’s rules of art; but of this wooden image, 
this work of my hands, this creature of my 
heart” — and here his voice faltered and choked 
in a very singular manner — “of this — of her — I 
may say that I know something. A wellspring 
of inward wisdom gushed within me as I wrought 
upon the oak with my whole strength and soul 
and faith. Let others do what they may with 
marble, and adopt what rules they choose. If 
I can produce my desired effect by painted wood, 
those rules are not for me, and I have a right to 
disregard them.” 

“The very spirit of genius,” muttered Copley 
to himself. “How otherwise should this carver 
feel himself entitled to transcend all rules, and 
make me ashamed of quoting them?” 

He looked earnestly at Drowne, and again 
saw that expression of human love which, in 
a spiritual sense, as the artist could not help 
imagining, was the secret of the life that had 
been breathed into this block of wood. 

The carver, still in the same secrecy that 
marked all his operations upon this mysterious 
image, proceeded to paint the habiliments in 
their proper colors, and the countenance with 
Nature’s red and white. When all was finished 
he threw open his workshop and admitted the 
townspeople to behold what he had done. Most 
persons, at their first entrance, felt impelled to 
remove their hats, and pay such reverence as was 
due to the richly dressed and beautiful young 
lady who seemed to stand in a corner of the room, 
with oaken chips and shavings scattered at her 


102 


HAWTHORNE 


feet. Then came a sensation of fear, as if, not 
being actually human, yet so like humanity, she 
must therefore be something preternatural. 
There was, in truth, an indefinable air and ex- 
pression that might reasonably induce the query. 
Who and from what sphere this daughter of the 
oak should be? The strange, rich flowers of 
Eden on her head; the complexion, so much 
deeper and more brilliant than those of our native 
beauties; the foreign, as it seemed, and fantastic 
garb, yet not too fantastic to be worn decorously 
in the street; the delicately wrought embroidery 
of the skirt ; the broad gold chain about her neck ; 
the curious ring upon her finger; the fan, so ex- 
quisitely sculptured in open work and painted to 
resemble pearl and ebony — where could Drowne, 
in his sober walk of life, have beheld the vision 
here so matchlessly embodied! And then her 
face! In the dark eyes and around the voluptu- 
ous mouth there played a look, made up of pride, 
coquetry, and a gleam of mirthfulness, which 
impressed Copley with the idea that the image 
was secretly enjoying the perplexing admiration 
of himself and other beholders. 

“And will you,” said he to the carver, “permit 
this masterpiece to become the figurehead of 
a vessel? Give the honest captain yonder figure 
of Britannia — it will answer his purpose far bet- 
ter — and send this fairy queen to England, 
where, for aught I know, it may bring you a thou- 
sand pounds.” 

“I have not wrought it for money,” said 
Drowne. 

“What sort of a fellow is this!” thought Cop- 
ley. “A Yankee, and throw away the chance of 


BROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE 103 

making his fortune! He has gone mad; and 
thence has come this gleam of genius.” 

There was still further proof of Browne’s 
lunacy, if credit were due to the rumor that he 
had been seen kneeling at the feet of the oaken 
lady and gazing with a lover’s passionate ardor 
into the face that his own hands had created. 
The bigots of the day hinted that it would be no 
matter of surprise if an evil spirit were allowed 
to enter this beautiful form and seduce the carver 
to destruction. 

The fame of the image spread far and wide. 
The inhabitants visited it so universally that 
after a few days of exhibition there was hardly 
an old man or a child who had not become mi- 
nutely familiar with its aspect. Even had the 
story of Browne’s wooden image ended here, its 
celebrity might have been prolonged for many 
years by the reminiscences of those who looked 
upon it in their childhood, and saw nothing else 
so beautiful in after life. But the town was now 
astounded by an event, the narrative of which has 
formed itself into one of the most singular legends 
that are yet to be met with in the traditionary 
chimney-corners of the New England metropolis, 
where old men and women sit dreaming of the 
past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of the 
present and the future. 

One fine morning, just before the departure of 
the Cynosure on her second voyage to Fayal, the 
commander of that gallant vessel was seen to 
issue from his residence in Hanover Street. He 
was stylishly dressed in a blue broadcloth coat, 
with gold lace at the seams and buttonholes, an 
embroidered scarlet waistcoat, a triangular hat. 


HAWTHORNE 


104 

with a loop and broad binding of gold, and wore 
a silver-hilted hanger at his side. But the good 
captain might have been arrayed in the robes of 
a prince or the rags of a beggar, without in either 
case attracting notice, while obscured by such 
a companion as now leaned on his arm. The 
people in the street started, rubbed their eyes, 
and either leaped aside from their path or stood 
as if transfixed to wood or marble in astonishment. 

“Do you see it? — do you see it?” cried one, 
with tremulous eagerness. “ It is the very same ! ’ ’ 

“The same?” answered another, who had 
arrived in town only the night before. “Who do 
you mean? I see only a sea-captain in his shore- 
going clothes, and a young lady in a foreign 
habit, with a bunch of beautiful flowers in her 
hat. On my word, she is as fair and bright 
a damsel as my eyes have looked on this many 
a day!” 

“Yes; the same! — the very same!” repeated 
the other. “Drowne’s wooden image has come 
to life!” 

Here was a miracle indeed! Yet, illuminated 
by the sunshine, or darkened by the alternate 
shade of the houses, and with its garments flut- 
tering lightly in the morning breeze, there passed 
the image along the street. It was exactly and 
minutely the shape, the garb, and the face which 
the townspeople had so recently thronged to see 
and admire. Not a rich flower upon her head, 
not a single leaf, but had had its prototype in 
Drowne’s wooden workmanship, although now 
their fragile grace had become flexible, and was 
shaken by every footstep that the wearer made. 
The broad gold chain upon the neck was iden- 


DROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE 105 

tical with the one represented on the image, and 
glistened with the motion imparted by the rise 
and fall of the bosom which it decorated. A real 
diamond sparkled on her finger. In her right 
hand she bore a pearl and ebony fan, which she 
flourished with a fantastic and bewitching 
coquetry, that was likewise expressed in all her 
movements, as well as in the style of her beauty 
and the attire that so well harmonized with it. 
The face with its brilliant depth of complexion 
had the same piquancy of mirthful mischief that 
was fixed upon the countenance of the image, but 
which was here varied and continually shifting, 
yet always essentially the same, like the sunny 
gleam upon a bubbling fountain. On the whole, 
there was something so airy and yet so real in 
the figure, and withal so perfectly did it represent 
Drowne’s image, that people knew not whether 
to suppose the magic wood etherealized into 
a spirit or warmed and softened into an actual 
woman. 

“One thing is certain,” muttered a Puritan of 
the old stamp, “Drowne has sold himself to the 
devil ; and doubtless this gay Captain Hunnewell 
is a party to the bargain. ’ ’ 

“And I,” said a young man who overheard 
him, “would almost consent to be the third victim 
for the liberty of saluting those lovely lips.” 

“And so would I,” said Copley, the painter, 
“for the privilege of taking her picture.” 

The image, or the apparition, whichever it 
might be, still escorted by the bold captain, 
proceeded from Hanover Street, through some of 
the cross-lanes that make this portion of the town 
so intricate, to Ann Street, thence into Dock 


io6 


HAWTHORNE 


Square, and so downward to Browne’s shop, 
which stood just on the water’s edge. The 
crowd still followed, gathering volume as it rolled 
along. Never had a modern miracle occurred in 
such broad daylight, nor in the presence of such 
a multitude of witnesses. The airy image, as if 
conscious that she was the object of the murmurs 
and disturbance that swelled behind her, appeared 
slightly vexed and flustered, yet still in a manner 
consistent with the light vivacity and sportive 
mischief that were written in her countenance. 

She was observed to flutter her fan with such 
vehement rapidity that the elaborate delicacy of 
its workmanship gave way, and it remained 
broken in her hand. 

Arriving at Browne’s door, while the captain 
threw it open, the marvelous apparition paused 
an instant on the threshold, assuming the very 
attitude of the image, and casting over the crowd 
that glance of sunny coquetry which all remem- 
bered on the face of the oaken lady. She and her 
cavalier then disappeared. 

“Ah!” murmured the crowd, drawing a deep 
breath, as with one vast pair of lungs. 

“The world looks darker now that she 'has 
vanished,” said some of the young men. 

But the aged, whose recollections dated as far 
back as witch times, shook their heads, and 
hinted that our forefathers would have thought 
it a pious deed to burn the daughter of the oak 
with fire. 

“If she be other than a bubble of the ele- 
ments, ’ ’ exclaimed Copley, ‘ ‘ I must look upon her 
face again.” 

He accordingly entered the shop; and there, 


DROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE 107 

in her usual corner, stood the image, gazing at 
him, as it might seem, with the very same expres- 
sion of mirthful mischief that had been the fare- 
well look of the apparition when, but a moment 
before, she turned her face toward the crowd. 
The carver stood beside his creation mending the 
beautiful fan, which by some accident was broken 
in her hand. But there was no longer any motion 
in the lifelike image, nor any real woman in the 
workshop, nor even the witchcraft of a sunny 
shadow, that might have deluded people’s eyes 
as it flitted along the street. Captain Hun- 
newell, too, had vanished. His hoarse, sea- 
breezy tones, however, were audible on the other 
side of a door that opened upon the water. 

“Sit down in the stern-sheets, my lady,” said 
the gallant captain. “Come, bear a hand, you 
lubbers, and set us on board in the turning of 
a minute-glass. ’’ 

And then was heard the stroke of oars. 

“Drowne, ’’ said Copley, with a smile of intel- 
ligence, “you have been a truly fortunate man. 
What painter or statuary ever had such a sub- 
ject! No wonder that she inspired a genius into 
you, and first created the artist who afterward 
created her image.’’ 

Drowne looked at him with a visage that bore 
the traces of tears, but from which the light of 
imagination and sensibility, so recently illumin- 
ating it, had departed. He was again the me- 
chanical carver that he had been known to be all 
his lifetime. 

“I hardly understand what you mean, Mr. 
Copley,’’ said he, putting his hand to his brow. 
“This image! Can it have been my work? Well, 


lo8 


HAWTHORNE 


I have wrought it in a kind of dream ; and now 
that I am broad awake I must set about finishing 
yonder figure of Admiral Vernon.” 

And forthwith he employed himself on the 
stolid countenance of one of his wooden progeny, 
and completed it in his own mechanical style, 
from which he was never known afterward to 
deviate. He followed his business industriously 
for many years, acquired a competence, and in 
the latter part of his life attained to a dignified 
station in the church, being remembered in 
records and traditions as Deacon Drowne, the 
carver. One of his productions, an Indian chief, 
gilded all over, stood during the better part of 
a century on the cupola of the Province House, 
bedazzling the eyes of those who looked upward, 
like an angel of the sun. Another work of the 
good deacon’s hand — a reduced likeness of his 
friend Captain Hunnewell, holding a telescope 
and quadrant — may be seen to this day at the 
corner of Broad and State streets, serving in the 
useful capacity of sign to the shop of a nautical 
instrument-maker. We know not how to account 
for the inferiority of this quaint old figure as 
compared with the recorded excellence of the 
Oaken Lady, unless on the supposition that in 
every human spirit there is imagination, sensibil- 
ity, creative power, genius, which, according to 
circumstances, may either be developed in this 
world, or shrouded in a mask of dullness until 
another state of being. To our friend Drowne 
there came a brief season of excitement, kindled 
by love. It rendered him a genius for that one 
occasion, but, quenched in disappointment, left 
him again the mechanical carver in wood, with- 


DROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE^ 109 

out the power even of appreciating the work that 
his own hands had wrought. Yet who can doubt 
that the very highest state to which a human 
spirit can attain, in its loftiest aspirations, is its 
truest and most natural state, and that Drowne 
was more consistent with himself when he 
wrought the admirable figure of the mysterious 
lady than when he perpetrated a whole progeny 
of blockheads? 

There was a rumor in Boston, about this period, 
that a young Portuguese lady of rank, on some 
occasion of political or domestic disquietude, 
had fled from her home in Fayal and put herself 
under the protection of Captain Hunnewell, on 
board of whose vessel, and at whose residence, 
she was sheltered until a change of affairs. This 
fair stranger must have been the original of 
Drowne’s Wooden Image. 



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BIOGRAPHICAL STORIES 


BENJAMIN WEST 

In the year 1738 there came into the world, in 
the town of Springfield, Pennsylvania, a Quaker 
infant, from whom his parents and neighbors 
looked for wonderful things. A famous preacher 
of -the Society of Friends had prophesied about 
little Ben, and foretold that he would be one of 
the most remarkable characters that had ap- 
peared on the earth since the days of William 
Penn. On this account the eyes of many people 
were fixed upon the boy. Some of his ancestors 
had won great renown in the old wars of England 
and France; but it was probably expected that 
Ben would become a preacher, and would con- 
vert multitudes to the peaceful doctrines of the 
Quakers. Friend West and his wife were thought 
to be very fortunate in having such a son. 

Little Ben lived to the ripe age of six years 
without doing anything that was worthy to be 
told in history. But one summer afternoon, in 
his seventh year, his mother put a fan into his 
hand and bade him keep the flies away from the 
face of a little babe who lay fast asleep in the 
cradle. She then left the room. 


Ill 


2 


HAWTHORNE 


The boy waved the fan to and fro and drove 
away the buzzing flies whenever they had the 
impertinence to come near the baby’s face. 
When they had all flown out of the window or 
into distant parts of the room, he bent over the 
cradle and delighted himself with gazing at the 
sleeping infant. It was, indeed, a very pretty 
sight. The little personage in the cradle slum- 
bered peacefully, with its waxen hands under its 
chin, looking as full of blissful quiet as if angels 
were singing lullabies in its ear. Indeed, it must 
have been dreaming about heaven; for, while 
Ben stooped over the cradle, the little baby 
smiled. 

“How beautiful she looks!” said Ben to him- 
self. “What a pity it is that such a pretty smile 
should not last forever!” 

Now Ben, at this period of his life, had never 
heard of that wonderful art by which a look that 
appears and vanishes in a moment may be made 
to last for hundreds of years. But though 
nobody had told him of such an art, he may be 
said to have invented it for himself. On a table 
near at hand there were pens and paper, and ink 
of two colors, black and red. The boy seized 
a pen and sheet of paper, and kneeling down be- 
side the cradle, began to draw a likeness of the 
infant. While he was busied in this manner he 
heard his mother’s step approaching, and hastily 
tried to conceal the paper. 

“Benjamin, my son, what hast thou been 
doing?” inquired his mother, observing marks of 
confusion in his face. 

At first Ben was unwilling to tell; for he felt 
as if there might be something wrong in steal- 


BENJAMIN WEST. 113 

ing the baby’s face and putting it upon a sheet 
of paper. However, as his mother insisted, he 
finally put the sketch into her hand, and then 
hung his head, expecting to be well scolded. 
But when the good lady saw what was on the 
paper, in lines of red and black ink, she uttered 
a scream of surprise and joy. 

“Bless me!” cried she. “It is a picture of 
little Sally!’’ 

And then she threw her arms round our friend 
Benjamin, and kissed him so tenderly that he 
never afterward was afraid to show his perform- 
ances to his mother. 

As Ben grew older, he was observed to take 
vast delight in looking at the hues and forms of 
nature. For instance, he was greatly pleased 
with the blue violets of spring, the wild roses of 
summer, and the scarlet cardinal-flowers of early 
autumn. In the decline of the year, when the 
woods were variegated with all the colors of the 
rainbow, Ben seemed to desire nothing better 
than to gaze at them from morn till night. The 
purple and golden clouds of sunset were a joy to 
him. And he was continually endeavoring to 
draw the figures of trees, men, mountains, houses, 
cattle, geese, ducks, and turkeys, with a piece of 
chalk, on barn doors or on the floor. 

In these old times the Mohawk Indians were 
still numerous in Pennsylvania. Every year a 
party of them used to pay a visit to Springfield, 
because the wigwams of their ancestors had for- 
merly stood there. These wild men grew fond of 
little Ben, and made him very happy by giving 
him some of the red and yellow paint with which 
they were accustomed to adorn their faces. His 


HAWTHORNE 


1 14 

mother, too, presented him .with a piece of 
indigo. Thus he now had three colors — red, 
blue, and yellow— and could manufacture green 
by mixing the yellow with the blue. Our friend 
Ben was overjoyed, and doubtless showed his 
gratitude to the Indians by taking their like- 
nesses in the strange dresses which they wore, 
with feathers, tomahawks, and bows and arrows. 
But all this time the young artist had no paint- 
brushes ; nor were there any to be bought, unless 
he had sent to Philadelphia on purpose. How- 
ever, he was a very ingenious boy, and resolved 
to manufacture paint-brushes for himself. With 
this design he laid hold upon — who do you think? 
Why, upon a respectable old black cat, who was 
sleeping quitly by the fireside. 

“Puss,” said little Ben to the cat, “pray give 
me some of the fur from the tip of thy tail.” 

Though he addressed the black cat so civilly, 
yet Ben was determined to have the fur whether 
she were willing or not. Puss, who had no great 
zeal for the fine arts, would have resisted if she 
could ; but the boy was armed with his mother’s 
scissors, and very dexterously clipped off fur 
enough to make a paint-brush. This was of so 
much use to him that he applied to Madame Puss 
again and again, until her warm coat of fur had 
become so thin and ragged that she could hardly 
keep comfortable through the winter. Poor 
thing! she was forced to creep close into the 
chimney-corner, and eyed Ben with a very rueful 
physiognomy. But Ben considered it more neces- 
sary that he should have paint-brushes than that 
puss should be warm. 

About this period Friend West received a visit 


BENJAMIN WEST 115 

from Mr. Pennington, a merchant of Philadelphia, 
who was likewise a member of the Society of 
Friends. The visitor, on entering the parlor, 
was surprised to see it ornamented with drawings 
of Indian chiefs, and of birds with beautiful 
plumage, and of the wild flowers of the forest. 
Nothing of the kind was ever seen before in the 
habitation of a Quaker farmer. 

“Why, Friend West,” exclaimed the Philadel- 
phia merchant, “what has possessed thee to cover 
thy walls with all these pictures? Where on earth 
didst thou get them?” 

Then Friend West explained that all these pic- 
tures were painted by little Ben, with no better 
materials than red and yellow ochre and a piece 
of indigo, and with brushes made of the black 
cat’s fur. 

“Verily,” said Mr. Pennington, “the boy hath 
a wonderful faculty. Some of our friends might 
look upon these matters as vanity; but little 
Benjamin appears to have been born a painter, 
and Providence is wiser than we are.” 

The good merchant patted Benjamin on the 
head, and evidently considered him a wonderful 
boy. When his parents saw how much their 
son’s performances were admired, they no doubt 
remembered the prophecy of the old Quaker 
preacher respecting Ben’s future eminence. Yet 
they could not understand how he was ever to 
become a very great and useful man merely by 
making pictures. 

One evening, shortly after Mr. Pennington’s 
return to Philadelphia, a package arrived at 
Springfield, directed to our little friend Ben. 

“What can it possibly be?” thought Ben, when 


HAWTHORNE 


1 16 

it was put into his hands. “Who can have sent 
me such a great square package as this?” 

On taking off the thick brown paper which en- 
veloped it, behold! there was a paint-box, with 
a great many cakes of paint, and brushes of vari- 
ous sizes. It was the gift of good Mr. Penning- 
ton. There were likewise several squares of can- 
vas such as artists use for painting pictures upon, 
and, in addition to all these treasures, some 
beautiful engravings of landscapes. These were 
the first pictures that Ben had ever seen, except 
those of his own drawing. 

What a joyful evening was this for the little 
artist! At bedtime he put the paint-box under 
his pillow, and got hardly a wink of sleep; for 
all night long his fancy was painting pictures in 
the darkness. In the morning he hurried to the 
garret, and was seen no more till the dinner-hour; 
nor did he give himself time to eat more than a 
mouthful or two of food before he hurried back to 
the garret again. The next day and the next he 
was just as busy as ever, until at last his mother 
thought it time to ascertain what he was about. 
She accordingly followed him to the garret. 

On opening the door, the first object that 
presented itself to her eyes was our friend Ben- 
jamin, giving the last touches to a beautiful pic- 
ture. He had copied portions of two of the 
engravings, and made one picture out of both, 
with such admirable skill that it was far more 
beautiful than the originals. The grass, the 
trees, the water, the sky, and the houses were all 
painted in their proper colors. There, too, were 
the sunshine and the shadow, looking as natural 
as life. 


BENJAMIN WEST 117 

“My dear child, thou hast done wonders!” 
cried his mother. 

The good lady was in an ecstasy of delight. 
And well might she be proud of her boy; for 
there were touches in this picture which old 
artists, who had spent a lifetime in the business, 
need not have been ashamed of. Many a year 
afterward, this wonderful production was ex- 
hibited at the Royal Academy in London. 

When Benjamin was quite a large lad he was 
sent to school . at Philadelphia. Not long after 
his arrival he had a slight attack of fever, which 
confined him to his bed. The light, which would 
otherwise have disturbed him, was excluded from 
his chamber by means of closed wooden shutters. 
At first it appeared so totally dark that Ben could 
not distinguish any object in the room. By de- 
grees, however, his eyes became accustomed to 
the scanty light. 

He was lying on his back, looking up toward 
the ceiling, when suddenly he beheld the dim 
apparition of a white cow moving slowly over 
his head ! Ben started, and rubbed his eyes in 
the greatest amazement. 

“What can this mean?” thought he. 

The white, cow disappeared, and next came 
several pigs, which trotted along the ceiling and 
vanished into the darkness of the chamber. So 
lifelike did these grunters look that Ben almost 
seemed to hear them squeak. 

“Well, this is very strange ! ’ ’ said Ben to himself. 

When the people of the house came to see 
him, Benjamin told them of the marvelous cir- 
cumstance which had occurred. But they would 
not believe him. 


ii8 


HAWTHORNE 


“Benjamin, thou art surely out of thy senses!” 
cried they. “How is it possible that a white 
cow and a litter of pigs should be visible on the 
ceiling of a dark chamber?” 

Ben, however, had great confidence in his own 
eyesight, and was determined to search the mys- 
tery to the bottom. For this purpose, when he 
was again left alone, he got out of bed and exam- 
ined the window-shutters. He soon perceived 
a small chink in one of them, through which a 
ray of light found its passage and rested upon 
the ceiling. Now, the science of optics will 
inform us that the pictures of the white cow and 
the pigs, and of other objects out of doors, came 
into the dark chamber through this narrow chink, 
and were painted over Benjamin’s head. It is 
greatly to his credit that he discovered the scien- 
tific principle of this phenomenon, and by means 
of it constructed a camera-obscura, or magic- 
lantern, out of a hollow box. This was of great 
advantage to him in drawing landscapes. 

Well, time went on, and Benjamin continued to 
draw and paint pictures until he had now reached 
the age when it was proper that he should choose 
a business for life. His father and mother were 
in considerable perplexity about him. According 
to the ideas of the Quakers, it is not right for 
people to spend their lives in occupations that 
are of no real and sensible advantage to the 
world. Now, what advantage could the world 
expect from Benjamin’s pictures? This was a 
difficult question ; and in order to set their minds 
at rest, his parents determined to consult the 
preachers and wise men of their society. Ac- 
cordingly, they all assembled in the meeting- 


BENJAMIN WEST 119 

house, and discussed the matter from beginning 
to end. 

Finally they came to a very wise decision. It 
seemed so evident that Providence had created 
Benjamin to be a painter, and had given him 
abilities which would be thrown away in any 
other business, that the Quakers resolved not to 
oppose his inclination. They even acknowledged 
that the sight of a beautiful picture might convey 
instruction to the mind and might benefit the 
heart as much as a good book or a wise discourse. 
They therefore committed the youth to the direc- 
tion of God, being well assured that he best knew 
what was his proper sphere of usefulness. The 
old men laid their hands upon Benjamin’s head 
and gave him their blessing, and the women 
kissed him affectionately. All consented that he 
should go forth into the world and learn to be a 
painter by studying the best pictures of ancient 
and modern times. 

So our friend Benjamin left the dwelling of his 
parents, and his native woods and streams, and 
the good Quakers of Springfield, and the Indians 
who had given him his first colors; he left all the 
places and persons whom he had hitherto known, 
and returned to them no more. He went first to 
Philadelphia, and afterward to Europe. Here 
he was noticed by many great people, but retained 
all the sobriety and simplicity which he had 
learned among the Quakers. It is related of him 
that when he was presented at the court of the 
Prince of Parma, he kept his hat upon his head 
even while kissing the Prince’s hand. 

When he was twenty-five years old he went to 
London and established himself there as an 


120 


HAWTHORNE 


artist. In due course of time he acquired great 
fame by his pictures, and was made chief painter 
to King George III. and president of the Royal 
Academy of Arts. When the Quakers of Penn- 
sylvania heard of his success, they felt that the 
prophecy of the old preacher as to little Ben’s 
future eminence was now accomplished. It is 
true, they shook their heads at his pictures of 
battle and bloodshed, such as the “Death of 
Wolfe, ’ ’ thinking that these terrible scenes should 
not be held up to the admiration of the world. 

But they approved of the great paintings in 
which he represented the miracles and sufferings 
of the Redeemer of mankind. King George 
employed him to adorn a large and beautiful 
chapel at Windsor Castle with pictures of these 
sacred subjects. He likewise painted a magnifi- 
cent picture of “Christ Healing the Sick,” which 
he gave to the hospital at Philadelphia. It was 
exhibited to the public, and produced so much 
profit that the hospital was enlarged so as to 
accommodate thirty more patients. If Benjamin 
West had done no other good deed than this, yet 
it would have been enough to entitle him to an 
honorable remembrance forever. At this very 
day there are thirty poor people in the hospital 
who owe all their comforts to that same picture. 

We shall mention only a single incident more. 
The picture of “Christ Healing the Sick’’ was 
exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, 
where it covered a vast space and displayed 
a multitude of figures as large as life. On the 
wall, close beside this admirable picture, hung 
a small and faded landscape. It was the same 
that little Ben had painted in his father’s garret, 


BENJAMIN WEST 121 

after receiving the paint-box and engravings 
from good Mr. Pennington. 

He lived many years in peace and honor, and 
died in 1820, at the age of eighty-two. The 
story of his life is almost as wonderful as a fairy 
tale ; for there are few stranger transformations 
than that of a little unknown Quaker boy, in the 
wilds of America, into the most distinguished 
English painter of his day. Let each make the 
best use of our natural abilities as Benjamin 
West did; and, with the blessing of Providence, 
we shall arrive at some good end. As for fame, 
it is but little matter whether we acquire it or 
not. 


SIR ISAAC NEWTON 


On Christmas day, in the year 1642, Isaac 
Newton was born, at the small village of Wools- 
thorpe, in England. Little did his mother think, 
when she beheld her new-born babe, that he was 
destined to explain many matters which had 
been a mystery ever since the creation of the 
world. 

Isaac’s father being dead, Mrs. Newton was 
married again to a clergyman, and went to reside 
at North Witham. Her son was left to the care 
of his good old grandmother, who was very kind 
to him, and sent him to school. In his early 
years Isaac did not appear to be a very bright 
scholar, but was chiefly remarkable for his 
ingenuity in all mechanical occupations. He 
had a set of little tools and saws of various sizes 
manufactured by himself. With the aid of these 
Isaac contrived to make many curious articles, at 
which he worked with so much skill that he 
seemed to have been born with a saw or chisel in 
hand. 

The neighbors looked with vast admiration at 
the things which Isaac manufactured. And his 
old grandmother, I suppose, was never weary of 
talking about him. 

“He’ll make a capital workman one of these 
days,’’ she would probably say. “No fear but 


122 


SIR ISAAC NEWTON 


123 

what Isaac will do well in the world and be 
a rich man before he dies.” 

It is amusing to conjecture what were the 
anticipations of his grandmother and the neigh- 
bors about Isaac’s future life. Some of them, 
perhaps, fancied that he would make beautiful 
furniture of mahogany, rosewood, or polished 
oak, inlaid with ivory and ebony, and magnifi- 
cently gilded.^ And then, doubtless, all the rich 
people would purchase these fine things to adorn 
their drawing-rooms. Others probably thought 
that little Isaac was destined to be an architect, 
and would build splendid mansions for the nobil- 
ity and gentry, and churches too, with the 
tallest steeples that had ever been seen in 
England. 

Some of his friends, no doubt, advised Isaac’s 
grandmother to apprentice him to a clock-maker; 
for, besides his mechanical skill, the boy seemed 
to have a taste for mathematics, which would be 
very useful to him in that profession. And then, 
in due time, Isaac would set up for himself, and 
would manufacture curious clocks, like those 
that contain sets of dancing figures, which issue 
from the dial-plate when the hour is struck ; or 
like those where a ship sails across the face of 
the clock, and is seen tossing up and down on 
the waves as often as the pendulum vibrates. 

Indeed, there was some ground for supposing 
that Isaac would devote himself to the manufac- 
ture of clocks, since he had already made one, 
of a kind which nobody had ever heard of before. 
It was set a-going, not by wheels and weights, 
like other clocks, but by the dropping of water. 
This was an object of great wonderment to all 


HAWTHORNE 


124 

the people round about; and it must be confessed 
that there are few boys, or men either, who could 
contrive to tell what o’clock it is by means of 
a bowl of water. 

Besides the water-clock, Isaac made a sundial. 
Thus his grandmother was never at a loss to 
know the hour; for the water-clock would tell it 
in the shade and the dial in the sunshine. The 
sundial is said to be still in existence at Wools- 
thorpe, on the corner of the house where Isaac 
dwelt. If so, it must have marked the passage 
of every sunny hour that has elapsed since Isaac 
Newton was a boy. It marked all the famous 
moments of his life; it marked the hour of his 
death ; and still the sunshine creeps slowly over 
it, as regularly as when Isaac first set it up. 

Yet we must not say that the sundial has lasted 
longer than its maker; for Isaac Newton will 
exist long after the dial — yea, and long after 
the sun itself — shall have crumbled to decay. 

Isaac possessed a wonderful faculty of acquir- 
ing knowledge by the simplest means. For 
instance, what method do you suppose he took 
to find out the strength of the wind? You will 
never guess how the boy could compel that un- 
seen, inconstant, and ungovernable wonder, the 
wind, to tell him the measure of its strength. 
Yet nothing can be more simple. He jumped 
against the wind; and by the length of his jump 
he could calculate the force of a gentle breeze, 
a brisk gale, or a tempest. Thus, even in his 
boyish sports, he was continually searching out 
the secrets of philosophy. 

Not far from his grandmother’s residence there 
was a windmill which operated on a new plan. 


SIR ISAAC NEWTON 125 

Isaac was in the habit of going thither fre- 
quently, and would spend whole hours in exam- 
ining its various parts. While the mill was at 
rest he pried into its internal machinery. When 
its broad sails were set in motion by the wind, he 
watched the process by which the millstones were 
made to revolve and crush the grain that was put 
into the hopper. After gaining a thorough 
knowledge of its construction he was observed to 
be unusually busy with his tools. 

It was not long before his grandmother and all 
the neighborhood knew what Isaac had been 
about. He had constructed a model of the wind- 
mill. Though not so large, I suppose, as one of 
the box-traps which boys set to catch squirrels, 
yet every part of the mill and its machinery was 
complete. Its little sails were neatly made of 
linen, and whirled round very swiftly when the 
mill was placed in a draught of air. Even a puff 
of wind from Isaac’s mouth or from a pair of 
bellows was sufficient to set the sails in motion. 
And what was most curious, if a handful of grains 
of wheat were put into the little hopper, they 
would soon be converted into snow-white flour. 
Isaac’s playmates were enchanted with his new 
windmill. They thought that nothing so pretty 
and so wonderful had ever been seen in the whole 
world. 

“But, Isaac,’’ said one of them, “you have 
fogotten one thing that belongs to a mill.’’ 

“What is that?’’ asked Isaac; for he supposed 
that, from the roof of the mill to its foundation, 
he had forgotten nothing. 

“Why, where is the miller?’’ said his friend. 

“That is true — I must look out for one,’’ said 


126 


HAWTHORNE 


Isaac; and he set himself to consider how the 
deficiency should be supplied. 

He might easily have made the miniature figure 
of a man; but then it would not have been able 
to move about and perform the duties of a miller. 
As Captain Lemuel Gulliver had not yet discov- 
ered the island of Lilliput, Isaac did not know 
that there were little men in the world whose size 
was just suited to his windmill. It so happened, 
however, that a mouse had just been caught in 
the trap; and, as no other miller could be found, 
Mr. Mouse was appointed to that important office. 
The new miller made a very respectable appear- 
ance in his dark gray coat. To be sure, he had 
not a very good character for honesty, and was 
suspected of sometimes stealing a portion of the 
grain which was given him to grind. But per- 
haps some two-legged millers are quite as dis- 
honest as this small quadruped. 

As Isaac grew older, it was found that he had 
far more important matters in his mind than the 
manufacture of toys like the little windmill. All 
day long, if left to himself, he was either absorbed 
in thought or engaged in some book of math- 
ematics or natural philosophy. At night, I think 
it probable, he looked up with reverential curi- 
osity to the stars, and wondered whether they 
were worlds like our own, and how great was 
their distance from the earth, and what was the 
power that kept them in their courses. Perhaps, 
even so early in life, Isaac Newton felt a present- 
iment that he should be able, hereafter, to answer 
all these questions. 

When Isaac was fourteen years old, his mother’s 
second husband being now dead, she wished her 


SIR ISAAC NEWTON 127 

son to leave school and assist her in managing 
the farm at Woolsthorpe. For a year or two, 
therefore, he tried to turn his attention to farm- 
ing. But his mind was so bent on becoming 
a scholar that his mother sent him back to school, 
and afterward to the University of Cambridge. 

I have now finished my anecdotes of Isaac New- 
ton’s boyhood. My story would be far too long 
were I to mention all the splendid discoveries 
which he made after he came to be a man. He 
was the first that found out the nature of light; 
for before his day nobody could tell what the 
sunshine was composed of. You remember, 
I suppose, the story of an apple’s falling on his 
head, and thus leading him to discover the force 
of gravitation, which keeps the heavenly bodies 
in their courses. When he had once got hold of 
this idea, he never permitted his mind to rest 
until he had searched out all the laws by which 
the planets are guided through the sky. This he 
did as thoroughly as if he had gone up among the 
stars and tracked them in their orbits. The boy 
had found out the mechanism of a windmill; the 
man explained to his fellow-men the mechanism 
of the universe. 

While making these researches he was accus- 
tomed to spend night after night in a lofty tower, 
gazing at the heavenly bodies through a tele- 
scope. His mind was lifted far above the things 
of this world. He may be said, indeed, to have 
spent the greater part of his life in worlds that 
lie thousands and millions of miles away; for 
where the thoughts and the heart are, there is our 
true existence. 

Did you never hear the story of Newton and 


128 


HAWTHORNE 


his little dog Diamond? One day, when he was 
fifty years old, and had been hard at work more 
than twenty years studying the theory of light, 
he went out of his chamber, leaving his little dog 
asleep before the fire. On the table lay a heap 
of manuscript papers, containing all the discov- 
eries which Newton had made during those twenty 
years. When his master was gone, up rose little 
Diamond, jumped upon the table, and overthrew 
the lighted candle. The papers immediately 
caught fire. 

Just as the destruction was completed Newton 
opened the chamber door, and perceived that 
the labors of twenty years were reduced to a heap 
of ashes. There stood little Diamond, the author 
of all the mischief. Almost any other man would 
have sentenced the dog to immediate death. 
But Newton patted him on the head with his usual 
kindness, although grief was at his heart. 

“O Diamond, Diamond!” exclaimed he, “thou 
little knowest the mischief thou hast done!” 

This incident affected his health and spirits for 
some time afterward ; but from his conduct to- 
ward the little dog you may judge what was the 
sweetness of his temper. 

Newton lived to be a very old man, and 
acquired great renown, and was made a member 
of Parliament, and received the honor of knight- 
hood from the king. But he cared little for 
earthly fame and honors, and felt no pride in the 
vastness of his knowledge. All that he had 
learned only made him feel how little he knew in 
comparison to what remained to be known. 

“I seem to myself like a child,” observed he, 
“playing on the seashore, and picking up here 


SIR ISAAC NEWTON 129 

and there a curious shell or a pretty pebble,- 
while the boundless ocean of Truth lies undiscov- 
ered before me. ” 

At last, in 1727, when he was fourscore and 
five years old. Sir Isaac Newton died — or rather, 
he ceased to live on earth. We may be per- 
mitted to believe that he is still searching out the 
infinite wisdom and goodness of the Creator as 
earnestly, and with even more success, than while 
his spirit animated a mortal body. He has left 
a fame behind him which will be as endurable as 
if his name were written in letters of light formed 
by the stars upon the midnight sky. 


OLIVER CROMWELL 


Not long after King James I. took the place of 
Queen Elizabeth on the throne of England, there 
lived an English knight at a place called Hinchin- 
brooke. His name was Sir Oliver Cromwell. 
He spent his life, I suppose, pretty much like 
other English knights and squires in those days, 
hunting hares and foxes and drinking large quan- 
tities of ale and wine. The old house in which 
he dwelt had been occupied by his ancestors 
before him for a good many years. In it there 
was a great hall, hung round with coats of arms 
and helmets, cuirasses and swords, which his 
forefathers had used in battle, and with horns of 
deer and tails of foxes which they or Sir Oliver 
himself had killed in the chase. 

This Sir Oliver Cromwell had a nephew, who 
had been called Oliver, after himself, but who 
was generally known in the family by the name 
of little Noll. His father was a younger brother 
of Sir Oliver. The child was often sent to visit 
his uncle, who probably found him a troublesome 
little fellow to take care of. He was forever in 
mischief, and always running into some danger 
or other, from which he seemed to escape only by 
miracle. 

Even while he was an infant in the cradle a 
strange accident had befallen him. A huge ape, 
130 


OLIVER CROMWELL 131 

which was kept in the family, snatched up little 
Noll in his forepaws and clambered with him to 
the roof of the house. There this ugly beast sat 
grinning at the affrighted spectators, as if it had 
done the most praiseworthy thing imaginable. 
Fortunately, however, he brought the child safe 
down again; and the event was afterward con- 
sidered iin omen that Noll would reach a very 
elevated station in the world. 

One morning, when Noll was five or six years 
old, a royal messenger arrived at Hinchinbrooke 
with tidings th|Lt King James was coming to dine 
with Sir Oliver Cromwell. This was a high 
honor, to be sure, but a very great trouble ; for 
all the lords and ladies, knights, squires, guards, 
and yeomen, who waited on the king, were to be 
feasted as well as himself ; and more provisions 
would be eaten and more wine drunk in that one 
day than generally in a month. However, Sir 
Oliver expressed much thankfulness for the king’s 
intended visit, and ordered his butler and cook 
to make the best preparations in their power. So 
a great fire was kindled in the kitchen; and the 
neighbors knew by the smoke which poured out 
of the chimney that boiling, baking, stewing, 
roasting, and frying were going on merrily. 

By and by the sound of trumpets was heard 
approaching nearer and nearer; a heavy, old- 
fashioned coach, surrounded by guards on horse- 
back, drove up to the house. Sir Oliver, with 
his hat in his hand, stood at the gate to receive 
the king. His Majesty was dressed in a suit of 
green not very new; he had a feather in his hat, 
and a triple ruff round his neck, and over his 
shoulder was slung a hunting-horn instead of a 


HAWTHORNE 


132 

sword. Altogether he had not the most dignified 
aspect in the world; but the spectators gazed at 
him as if there was something superhuman and 
divine in his person. They even shaded their 
eyes with their hands, as if they were dazzled 
by the glory of his countenance. 

“How are ye, man?“ cried King James, speak- 
ing in a Scotch accent; for Scotland was his 
native country. “By my crown. Sir Oliver, but 
I am glad to see ye!” 

The good knight thanked the king; at the 
same time kneeling down while his Majesty 
alighted. When King James stood on the 
ground, he directed Sir Oliver’s attention to a 
little boy who had come with him in the coach. 
He was six or seven years old, and wore a hat 
and feather, and was more richly dressed than 
the king himself. Though by no means an ill- 
looking child, he seemed shy, or even sulky; and 
his cheeks were rather pale, as if he had been 
kept moping within doors, instead of being sent 
out to play in the sun and wind. 

“I have brought my son Charlie to see ye,” 
said the king. “I hope. Sir Oliver, ye have a son 
of your own to be his playmate.’’ 

Sir Oliver Cromwell made a reverential bow to 
the little prince, whom one of the attendants had 
now taken out of the coach. It was wonderful 
to see how all the spectators, even the aged men 
with their gray beards, humbled themselves be- 
fore this child. They bent their bodies till their 
beards almost swept the dust. They looked as 
if they were ready to kneel down and worship 
him. 

The poor little prince! From his earliest 


OLIVER CROMWELL 


133 

infancy not a soul had dared to contradict him ; 
everybody around him had acted as if he were 
a superior being; so that, of course, he had 
imbibed the same opinion of himself. He natu- 
rally supposed that the whole kingdom of Great 
Britain and all its inhabitants had been created 
solely for his benefit and amusement. This was 
a sad mistake ; and it cost him dear enough after 
he had ascended his father’s throne. 

“What a noble little prince he is!” exclaimed 
Sir Oliver, lifting his hands in admiration. “No, 
please your Majesty, I have no son to be the play- 
mate of his royal highness ; but there is a nephew 
of mine somewhere about the house. He is near 
the prince’s age, and will be but too happy to 
wait upon his royal highness.’’ 

“Send for him, man! send for him!’’ said the 
king. 

But, as it happened, there was no need of 
sending for Master Noll. While King James was 
speaking, a rugged, bold-faced, sturdy little 
urchin thrust himself through the throng of cour- 
tiers and attendants and greeted the prince with 
a broad stare. His doublet and hose (which had 
been put on new and clean in honor of the king’s 
visit) were already soiled and torn with the rough 
play in which he had spent the morning. He 
looked no more abashed than if King James 
were his uncle and the prince one of his custom- 
ary playfellows. 

This was little Noll himself. 

“Here, please your Majesty, is my nephew,’’ 
said Sir Oliver, somewhat ashamed of Noll’s ap- 
pearance and demeanor. “Oliver, make your 
obeisance to the king’s majesty.’’ 


HAWTHORNE 


134 

The boy made a pretty respectful obeisance to 
the king; for in those days children were taught 
to pay reverence to their elders. King James, 
who prided himself greatly on his scholarship, 
asked Noll a few questions in the Latin gram- 
mar, and then introduced him to his son. The 
little prince, in a very grave and dignified man- 
ner, extended his hand, not for Noll to shake, but 
that he might kneel down and kiss it. 

“Nephew,” said Sir Oliver, “pay your duty 
to the prince. ” 

“I owe him no duty,” cried Noll, thrusting 
aside the prince’s hand with a rude laugh. “Why 
should I kiss that boy’s hand?” 

All the courtiers were amazed and confounded, 
and Sir Oliver the most of all. But the king 
laughed heartily, saying that little Noll had a 
stubborn English spirit, and that it was well for 
his son to learn betimes what sort of a people he 
was to rule over. 

So King James and his train entered the house ; 
and the prince, with Noll and some other chil- 
dren, was sent to play in a separate room while 
his Majesty was at dinner. The young people 
soon became acquainted ; for boys, whether the 
sons of monarchs or of peasants, all like play, 
and are pleased with one another’s society. 
What games they diverted themselves with I can- 
not tell. Perhaps they played at ball, perhaps 
at blind-man’s-buff, perhaps at leap-frog, perhaps 
at prison-bars. Such games have been in use for 
hundreds of years; and princes as well as poor 
children have spent some of their happiest hours 
in playing at them. 

Meanwhile King James and his nobles were 


OLIVER CROMWELL 135 

feasting with Sir Oliver in the great hall. The 
king sat in a gilded chair, under a canopy, at 
the head of a long table. Whenever any of the 
company addressed him, it was with the deepest 
reverence. If the attendants offered him wine 
or the various delicacies of the festival, it was 
upon their bended knees. You would have 
thou^t, by these tokens of worship, that the 
monarch was a supernatural being; only he 
seemed to have quite as much need of those vul- 
gar matters, food and drink, as any other person 
at the table. But fate had ordained that good 
King James should not finish his dinner in peace. 

All of a sudden there arose a terrible uproar in 
the room where the children were at play. Angry 
shouts and shrill cries of alarm were mixed up 
together; while the voices of elder persons were 
likewise heard, trying to restore order among 
the /children. The king and everybody else at 
table looked aghast, for perhaps the tumult made 
them think that a general rebellion had broken 
out. 

“Mercy on us!” muttered Sir Oliver; “that 
graceless nephew of mine is in some mischief or 
other. The naughty little whelp!” 

Getting up from table, he ran to see what was 
the matter, followed by many of the guests, and 
the king among them. They all crowded to the 
door of the playroom. 

On looking in, they beheld the little Prince 
Charles, with his rich dress all torn and covered 
with the dust of the floor. His royal blood was 
streaming from his nose in great abundance. 
He gazed at Noll with a mixture of rage and 
affright, and at the same time a puzzled expres- 


HAWTHORNE 


136 

sion, as if he could not understand how any 
mortal boy should dare to give him a beating. 
As for Noll, there stood his sturdy little figure, 
bold as a lion, looking as if he were ready to 
fight, not only the prince, but the king and king- 
dom too. 

“You little villain!” cried his uncle. “What 
have you been about? Down on your knees, this 
instant, and ask the prince’s pardon. How dare 
you lay your hands on the king’s majesty’s royal 
son?” 

“He struck me first,” grumbled the valiant 
little Noll; “and I’ve only given him his due.” 

Sir Oliver and the guests lifted up their hands 
in astonishment and horror. No punishment 
seemed severe enough for this wicked little varlet, 
who had dared to resent a blow from the king’s 
own son. Some of the courtiers were of opinion 
that Noll should be sent prisoner to the Tower 
of London and brought to trial for high treason. 
Others, in their great zeal for the king’s service, 
were about to lay hands on the boy and chastise 
him in the royal presence. 

But King James, who sometimes showed a good 
deal of sagacity, ordered them to desist. 

“Thou art a bold boy,” said he, looking fixedly 
at little Noll; “and, if thou live to be a man, my 
son Charlie would do wisely to be friends with 
thee.” 

“I never will!” cried the little prince, stamp- 
ing his foot. 

“Peace, Charlie, peace!” said the king; then 
addressing Sir Oliver and the attendants : 
“Harm not the urchin; for he has taught my son 
a good lesson, if Heaven do but give him grace 


OLIVER CROMWELL 137 

to profit by it. Hereafter, should he be tempted 
to tyrannize over the stubborn race of English- 
men, let him remember little Noll Cromwell and 
his own bloody nose.” 

So the king finished his dinner and departed; • 
and for many a long year the childish quarrel 
between Prince Charles and Noll Cromwell was 
forgotten. The prince, indeed, might have 
lived a happier life, and have met a more peace- 
ful death, had he remembered that quarrel and 
the moral which his father drew from it. But 
when old King James was dead, and Charles sat 
upon his throne, he seemed to forget that he was 
but a man, and that his meanest subjects were 
men as well as he. He wished to have the prop- 
erty and lives of the people of England entirely 
at his own disposal. But the Puritans, and all 
who loved liberty, rose against him, and beat 
him in many battles, and pulled him down from 
his throne. 

Throughout this war between the king and 
nobles on one side and the people of England on 
the other there was a famous leader, who did 
more toward the ruin of royal authority than all 
the rest. The contest seemed like a wrestling- 
match between King Charles and this strong 
man. And the king was overthrown. 

When the discrowned monarch was brought to 
trial, that warlike leader sat in the judgment 
hall. Many judges were present besides himself ; 
but he alone had the power to save King Charles 
or to doom him to the scaffold. After sentence 
was pronounced, this victorious general was 
entreated by his own children, on their knees, to 
rescue his Majesty from death. 


138 H 4 WTH 0 RNE 

“No!” said he, sternly. “Better that one 
man should perish than that the whole country 
should be ruined for his sake. It is resolved 
that he shall die!” 

When Charles, no longer a king, was led to the 
scaffold, his great enemy stood at a window of 
the royal palace of Whitehall. He beheld the 
poor victim of pride, and an evil education, and 
misused power, as he laid his head upon the 
block. He looked on with a steadfast gaze while 
a black-veiled executioner lifted the fatal ax 
and smote off that anointed head at a single blow. 

“It is a righteous deed,” perhaps he said to 
himself. “Now Englishmen may enjoy their 
rights. ” 

At night, when the body of Charles was laid in 
the coffin, in a gloomy chamber, the general 
entered, lighting himself with a torch. Its gleam 
showed that he was now growing old ; his visage 
was scarred with the many battles in which he 
had led the van ; his brow was wrinkled with care 
and with the continual exercise of stern author- 
ity. Probably there was not a single trait, either 
of aspect or manner, that belonged to the little 
Noll who had battled so stoutly with Prince 
Charles. Yet this was he! 

He lifted the coffin-lid, and caused the light 
of his torch to fall upon the dead monarch’s face. 
Then, probably, his mind went back over all the 
marvelous events that had brought the hereditary 
King of England to this dishonored coffin, and 
had raised himself, a humble individual, to the 
possession of kingly power. He was a king, 
though without the empty title or the glittering 
crown. 


OLIVER CROMWELL 


139 

“Why was it,” said Cromwell to himself, or 
might have said, as he gazed at the pale features 
in the coffin — “why was it that this great king 
fell, and that poor Noll Cromwell has gained all 
the power of the realm?” 

And, indeed, why was it? 

King^ Charles had fallen because, in his man- 
hood the same as when a child, he disdained to 
feel that every human creature was his brother. 
He deemed himself a superior being, and fancied 
that his subjects were created only for a king to 
rule over. And Cromwell rose because, in spite 
of his many faults, he mainly fought for the 
rights and freedom of his fellow-men; and there- 
fore the poor and the oppressed all lent their 
strength to him. 



PRINTED BY R. R. DONNELLEY 
AND SONS COMPANY AT THE 
LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL. 

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